Off the Clock: Edwina Tops-Alexander Is Chasing History Again

Few riders can tell the story of the Longines Global Champions Tour quite like Edwina Tops-Alexander.

She was there at the beginning. She has competed at approximately 80% of all LGCT events, watched the Tour transform across two decades and delivered some of its most unforgettable moments.

Twenty years later, she remains exactly where she has so often been: at the heart of the Championship fight.

Following the Longines Global Champions Tour of Valkenswaard, Edwina now sits third in the 2026 Championship. With the season entering its decisive stages, the two-time Champion remains firmly in contention for a historic third title.

In the latest episode of Off the Clock, Edwina walks through the Longines Tops International Arena and reflects on two extraordinary decades, the horses that have defined her career and what continues to drive her at the highest level of the sport.

For Edwina, the story began at the very first Global Champions event in Palm Beach.

“It’s unbelievable because it has been 20 years now,” she said. “There are so many amazing memories. I’ve probably been one of the few riders to have competed at around 80% of all the shows, which is quite a lot.

“I’ve seen a massive development. I’ve seen how much the shows have grown and how many riders have been lifted up through the sport. The whole sport has changed, and it’s exciting.”

That first season looked very different from the international circuit fans know today. There were just six events, with Palm Beach marking the start of a journey that would become inseparable from Edwina’s career and the history of the Tour itself.

“It started small and it has now grown much bigger,” she explained. “What’s really fantastic about how the sport has evolved is that we’ve been able to include so many more people. The level has become so strong, and it continues to get stronger.

“There is also much more awareness outside our own world, which is what we need. That’s exciting for the future.”

Across her remarkable LGCT career, Edwina has secured 28 Grand Prix podiums, including nine victories. She claimed back-to-back Championship titles in 2011 and 2012 and finished on the overall podium in 2010 and 2016.

At the centre of many of those defining moments was the incomparable Cevo Itot du Château.

“The majority of those wins would definitely go towards Itot,” Edwina reflected. “It was a match made in heaven for the two of us. I felt like I had known him my whole life.

“When you have that connection with a horse, you build on that relationship. I always say confidence builds confidence.”

Together, Edwina and Itot became one of the most formidable partnerships of their era, delivering the consistency required to succeed not simply on one afternoon, but across an entire Championship season.

Even among nine LGCT Grand Prix victories and two Championship titles, one night occupies a unique place in Edwina’s story.

In 2018, she qualified for the inaugural LGCT Super Grand Prix at the GC Prague Playoffs. Riding California, Edwina was the only female athlete in a field featuring that season’s LGCT Grand Prix winners — and she emerged victorious.

“The first Super Grand Prix in Prague was incredible,” she said. “I was the only female, competing against the best riders who had won on the Global Tour. I had California, and my parents were there, so that was amazing.

“It was one of the toughest Grands Prix I’ve ever done. In such a split second, you have to be able to change everything, and your mindset has to be prepared for that. It was something really special and definitely one of my biggest wins.”

Valkenswaard carries a significance extending well beyond competition for Edwina. It is home, the birthplace of the Tour and, this year, the setting for a weekend that became a true family affair as her daughter Chloé also competed.

“I’ve got friends who have come to watch, and Chloé is riding as well, with her friends here to watch her,” Edwina said. “It’s a bit of a family affair.”

Edwina arrived in Valkenswaard sitting second in the Championship after a season built on consistent results and repeated top-ten finishes. Following the latest stage, she holds third place and remains firmly within reach of the Championship lead.

Experience may have changed the way she approaches a title fight, but it has not diminished her hunger for success. With the final stages of the season ahead, Edwina knows better than most the consistency, confidence and resilience required to stay in contention until the very end.

“The future of our sport and the future of the Tour is really about progress,” she said. “What’s so good about the Tour is the consistency and the loyalty that the Longines Global Champions Tour brings to all the riders. It’s a Tour that will be there forever.”

Two decades after helping to write its opening chapter, Edwina is still shaping the story of the Tour — and the next chapter could yet see her crowned LGCT Champion for a historic third time.