A total of 27 grand prix combinations went down centerline on opening day of Week five at the 2026 Adequan® Global Dressage Festival (AGDF) in the day’s two top-level classes. Unusually chilly and blustery conditions allowed a single plus-70% score to be enough to claim the honors in each class. Geñay Vaughn (USA) led the way in the Coastal Steel Structures CDI4* Grand Prix riding Gino, while fellow U.S. athlete Ashley Holzer secured the winner’s blanket in the Modon CDI3* Grand Prix with 70.261% on Hawtins San Floriana.

Photo – Geñay Vaughn & Gino. (©Centre Line Media)

In the headline CDI4* class, female U.S. riders filled the top four spots. Below Vaughn on the leaderboard, locally based Devon Kane took second on her family’s Diamante Farms’ 14-year-old Vivaldi gelding, Vamos. The 68.717% was their highest score in this test in their three years at the CDI level, eclipsing their previous top score by 0.043 percentage points. Katherine Bateson Chandler rode another 14-year-old—her own and Jennifer Huber’s Connaisseur daughter Haute Couture—into third place with 68.391%.

Familiar Faces

Top three in the CDI4* Grand Prix: Geñay Vaughn, Devon Kane and Katherine Bateson Chandler with Sabrina Bovay of Wellington International. (Photo: ©Centre Line Media)

Vaughn is based in Elk Grove, California, and she and the 15-year-old Gino are familiar faces in the winner’s circle on the West Coast, but this was their first East Coast victory.

“It was wild winter in there!” exclaimed Vaughn, who is spending the season in Wellington to try to secure a starting spot at the FEI World Cup™ Final in Fort Worth, Texas, in April. “For him to stay with me like he did shows me that he’s in tune with me—he’s the greatest. He’s a super freak with strengths in the piaffe, passage, and changes—everywhere really. His gaits are incredible, and everything keeps getting better; we’re starting to tap into showing everyone what we can do at home.”

Vaughn has been riding the striking black 17.3hh gelding by Bretton Woods since he was six, though he was originally intended as a ride for her mother Michele, who now trains the pair.

“When we brought Gino home, I did the first ride on him and my mom saw the potential and realized right away how special he was,” explained Vaughn, who sits 36th on the FEI Dressage World Ranking. “With my aspirations and what I wanted to do, I’m forever grateful to her.

“Gino is a big boy, but that doesn’t matter much because he’s so in sync with me,” she concluded. “Today, he stayed listening to me and was so sensitive. I don’t think his size matters; it’s about the size of our heart.”

Click for full results from the Coastal Steel Structures CDI4* Grand Prix.