Longines Global Champions Tour Enters Pyramids’ Equestrian Legacy

Egypt has been putting horses at the centre of its story for thousands of years. Long before show jumping had grandstands, championship points or million-dollar prize pots, Egyptian kings were racing chariots across the desert and commissioning images of themselves on horseback.

Now, the horses are coming back to Giza, only this time the world’s best riders will be in the saddle.

From October 22nd-24th, the Longines Global Champions Tour has selected Egypt for the first time, with the Great Pyramids hosting one of the Tour’s 17 international stages as part of its 2026 season. The three-day event will bring five-star competition to Giza in partnership with the Egyptian Equestrian Federation, setting in motion a five-year partnership between the Tour and the country's authority on equestrian sports.

It is an appropriately dramatic setting for a tour that has spent the last two decades making a spectacle of show jumping itself. The Longines Global Champions Tour takes the sport out of the traditional confines of equestrian venues and into some of the world’s most recognisable cities, from Miami Beach and Mexico City to Paris, Monaco and London.

For its 2026 season, Cairo joins that list alongside 16 other destinations across four continents. But unlike most stops on the calendar, Egypt’s connection to the horse predates the sport by several millennia.

Horses arrived in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period and quickly became closely associated with royalty, warfare and prestige. By the New Kingdom, Egyptian rulers were depicted driving chariots and hunting from horseback, with horses occupying a prominent place in royal imagery.

That makes the choice of Giza more than a spectacular backdrop. There’s something almost circular about the Longines Global Champions Tour arriving in Egypt’s most iconic location.

Over three days, riders will compete across carefully designed obstacles for international rankings and some of the sport’s biggest prizes. The Longines Global Champions Tour Grand Prix of Cairo is a CSI5* competition, with a 1.60-metre course and €1.75 million in prize money up for grabs.

Those rankings matter particularly at this stage of the season. With the 2026 championship entering its final stretch, every result counts towards the individual Longines Global Champions Tour title and team honours in the Global Champions League.

And that is where the scale of the event becomes apparent.

Cairo could well bring some of the sport’s most decorated riders to Giza, including Olympic champions and medallists who have competed at the highest level. Germany’s Christian Kukuk arrives as the reigning individual Olympic champion after taking gold at Paris 2024, while Britain’s Ben Maher brings three Olympic gold medals to the starting field. Fellow Brit Scott Brash has two Olympic golds, while Marcus Ehning, Cian O’Connor, Simon Delestre, Daniel Deusser and Pieter Devos are also among the Olympic medallists set to compete.

Additionally, former LGCT champions that will comete in Cairo included the likes of German pair, Marcus Ehning and Daniel Deusser, and Austrian rider Max Kühner.

Also competing will be Egyptian-American rider Nayel Nassar, who has represented Egypt at the London 2012 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as well as the 2014 World Equestrian Games and three FEI World Cup Finals. In addition to individual competition, Nassar will compete as part of the Cairo Pharaohs team, alongside fellow Egyptian rider Sameh El Dahan, Belgian rider Annelies Vorsselmans, Dutch rider Pim Mulder and American riders Vani Khosla and Zayna Rizvi.

The lineup is telling of the occasion. The setting may make for a spectacular event, but the competition itself is serious sport.

That distinction matters.

The Longines Global Champions Tour has built its reputation partly by making its destinations part of the experience, but the competition itself remains uncompromised.

For Egypt’s equestrian community, the event puts the country on the map of one of the sport’s most prestigious international circuits. For audiences who may not ordinarily follow show jumping, the setting offers an uniquely accessible entry point: this isn’t simply an afternoon at an equestrian arena. It’s Olympic champions and world-class riders competing beneath one of the world’s most enduring symbols of civilisation.

There is also a certain symmetry to the timing.

The 2026 season marks the 20th anniversary of the Longines Global Champions Tour, while the Global Champions League celebrates its 10th anniversary. The former came to fruition as a radical rethink of international show jumping, and has now grown into a global circuit - and Egypt represents the next chapter in that growth.

After Giza, the Tour heads to Rabat, Morocco for its finals before the season culminates with the GC Playoffs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in November. By then, the Egyptian leg will be a critical juncture of the tour’s final standings, offering a rare collision of scale, setting and sporting pedigree.

The kings had their chariots. The modern champions have their steeds.

And for three days in October, both stories will meet at the Pyramids.

Tickets for the Longines Global Champions Tour Cairo are available via the link in bio at @LGCTcairo Instagram.