World Cup season starts in USA, Europe follows next week in Oslo

This weekend, the outdoor season finally comes to an end in the top show jumping sport, because then the World Cup season, the unofficial indoor world championship, begins in Sacramento, USA.
The Murieta Equestrian Center, known for having spectator stands stacked to the rafters, will host the first of eight events in the NAL season, the North American World Cup League. The NAL tour will wind its way through the United States, Canada and Mexico in all directions, with four events each on the west and east coasts of the continent. A total of 14 NAL qualifying spots are available for the finals, 10 of which will be awarded to U.S. athletes (seven U.S. riders on the East Coast and three U.S. riders on the West Coast); four additional spots will be awarded to the top two Canadian and Mexican athletes.

After opening in Sacramento, the NAL continues to Upper Marlboro in Maryland and Lexington. The two US legs are followed by Toronto in Canada, which returns to the NAL calendar with the Royal Horse Show after a two-year pandemic break. Las Vegas, Fort Worth, Puebla in Mexico and Ocala will conclude the 2022/2023 North American League season. The athletes' four best results always count towards their qualification points.
The Western European League, in which the German starters will also be involved in the fight for the final places, will start one week later in Oslo. From there, in the following weeks and months, it goes via Helsinki, Lyon, Verona and Stuttgart to Madrid. La Coruna, London, Mechelen, Basel and Leipzig will follow. Amsterdam follows at the end of January 2023, before Bordeaux and the Western European Tour finish in Gothenburg. A total of 18 places for the World Cup Final will be awarded in the Western European League.
At the same time, there will be competitions for the final starting places in the Northern Central European League with Poland and the Baltic States (3 places), the Southern Central European League with Hungary and Turkey (3), the South American League with Argentina and Brazil (2), Australia (2), New Zealand, Japan, China and the South-East Asian League (1 starting place each), the Central Asian League (3), South Africa (1), the Middle East (3) and North Africa (2). Since the starting places from the more distant regions of the world are often waived - also for reasons of cost - starters from Western Europe and North America in particular then move up each time.
In the first week of April 2023, all the qualifiers will meet for the big World Cup final in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
This year, in April, Martin Fuchs won the World Cup Final in Leipzig with Chaplin and The Sinner, ahead of Harrie Smolders on Monaco and Jens Fredricson on Markan Cosmopolit, and these three will certainly be among the favourites for the overall victory again in the new season. The last German victories were a few years ago: In 2013 in Lyon by Daniel Deusser on Cornet d'Amour and in 2011 in Leipzig by Christian Ahlmann on Taloubet Z.