European Championships 2026: Dahl brings home Bronze in fantastic Freestyle success

Bringing home the sole medal of the week, Mette Dahl and Daytona Platinum brought home bronze in the Young Rider Freestyle to Music Championship.

© Lukasz Kowalski 2026

Young Riders

After a consistent week of top tests, Mette Dahl produced a stunning freestyle test to bring home a bronze medal with a personal best score of 75.937%. The pair entered the test in collected trot to an orchestral version The Mamas and Papas ‘California Dreaming’. This was then followed by Imagine Dragons’ ‘Believer’, marking a bold and attention-grabbing entrance and start to the start. Throughout the trot tour, Mette and Dino produced relaxed, fluent, expressive work; showcasing complete harmony in their partnership and interpreting the music brilliantly to highlight Dino’s bold extended trots. The trot half pass and shoulder in featured Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ and ‘Dance the Night Away’ from The Mavericks. The walk tour, again, showed true relaxation and fluency, producing excellent lengthening of the frame and stride through the extended walk to Oasis’ Half The World Away. Moving through into the canter, the duo danced their way through an accurate, flowing canter tour. The canter half pass from the centre line back to the track, and immediately back on to the short diagonal to do their half canter pirouette before starting their three-time tempi changes on a curved line showed excellent degrees of difficulty, whilst still being performed in complete harmony and elegance to another Imagine Dragon song, ‘Natural’. The beautiful, uphill extended canters were highlighted by The Mamas and Papas ‘California Dreaming’.

Reflecting upon her whole experience at the Championships, Mette commented “having only had the ride on Dino for nine months and juggling riding alongside University, I came to the European’s with no expectations. I was so pleased that throughout the week Dino gained more confidence and just qualifying for the freestyle on the final day was an incredible achievement. This was his first ever freestyle and we had only ever run through it once, I had no idea how we would fare, but he gave me everything”.

U25

Annabella Pidgley and Gio lit up the dancefloor, blowing judges away to score 72.400% technical mark and 82.520% artistic mark and finish a fraction outside of the medals in fourth place with a final score of 77.460%. As the trot tour started, viewers were dancing in their seats to some fantastic songs, including Neil Diamond’s 'Sweet Caroline' and Lesley Gore’s 'It’s My Party'. The duo’s fantastic energy and interpretation of the music produced fantastic performances in the piaffe and passage, earning average marks of 7.3 and 7.8 respectively. Moving up into the canter tour, the music was a fantastic combination of dancefloor songs, including Michael Bublé, The Jackson Five, Jennifer Lopez and Tom Jones to produce a timeless piece of artistry. Unfortunately, Annabella did lose a few marks as she got ahead of the music through the canter, however produced a clean set of canter work, including the tempi changes where she had lost marks earlier in the week. Via Instagram, Annabella shared “he really fought for me until the very end. By far our best test of the week and I am so proud of my little man. We were so close to our goal to bring home a medal and I’m very proud of that. Finishing fourth in the final two years in a row is something I am extremely proud of, but also something that pushes us to work even harder. We will keep on dreaming and working towards making it up on that podium again. We loved dancing to our new freestyle. It was so much fun to ride, which is what a freestyle should be! Our new freestyle was inspired by all my Mum’s favourite songs because, if you know her, she is our biggest supporter so to see her dancing along as Pummi and I were dancing together in the rigng was truly special”.

Lilah and Dude danced their way in an upbeat, engaging freestyle to produce a final score of 67.560%. Featuring multiple songs from Florence + The Machine, the duo completed with a 69.920% artistic score, and 65.200% technical mark. There were many highlights of the test, including fantastic moments of piaffe and passage to “What Kind of Man” which highlighted the massive elevation and suspension that Dude is able to produce in those movements. In the canter work, they produced some of their best work of the week, including impressing the judges to earn an average mark of 7.5 for both their extended canter and subsequent pirouette. Unfortunately, there was some tension in the walk work and a disappointing mistake in the final piaffe fan where the rhythm was lost slightly but was efficiently corrected by Lilah.

A huge congratulations go to all the riders and their teams throughout the week who have produced some fantastic performances.

Results – top three and British riders

Young Rider Freestyle

1. Lara van Nek and Jatilinda, 80.255% (NED)

2. Michella Skovsager and Zimillione Pt2, 77.845% (DEN)

3. Mette Dahl and Daytona Platinum, 75.930% (GBR)

U25 Grand Prix Freestyle

1. Marten Luiten and Johnny, 81.565% (NED)

2. Alexander Yde Helgstrand and Inspiration PF, 79.640% (DEN)

3. Rose Oatley and Alive and Kicking, 79.255% (GER)

4. Annabella Pidgley and Gio, 77.460% (GBR)

17. Lilah Gibbs and Dude III, 67.910% (GBR)

FULL RESULTS