Canada, which has never hosted the Championships, confirmed its initial bid to host the 2018 event in Bromont near Montreal, earlier this year, but at a meeting of the FEI Bureau in July, the world governing body decided not to allocate the event to them, even though they were the only bidders, as it did not provide the necessary financial guarantees.

The bidding process was reopened and Canada was told by the FEI that a re-submitted bid would be evaluated in the same way as other applicants.

In the meantime, the US has indicated its intention to bid for the Championships, proposing Wellington in Florida and Lexington in Kentucky as potential host cities.

Lexington has already hosted the World Championships in 2010, the first time the event had been held in America.

Lexington hosted the 2010 World Equestrian Games and is among the two cities proposed by the United States in their bid for 2018

The US were among the record eight bidders originally revealed by the FEI in November 2011 but later dropped out, along with Australia, Austria, Hungary, Morocco, Russia and Sweden.

Britain has also launched a bid as it seeks to stage the Championships for the first time, but as of yet the British Equestrian Foundation (BEF) has not disclosed where it would host the event.

A BEF spokesperson confirmed to insidethegames that that they are interested in bidding for the Championships but that any formal bid would be dependent on ongoing discussions with the FEI regarding changes to the format that would help to reduce the cost of staging the event.

"The BEF can confirm that an expression of interest regarding the hosting of the 2018 World Equestrian Games has been lodged with the FEI," head of marketing and communications at the BEF, Claire Shand told insidethegames.

"An expression of interest carries no liability in terms of whether a formal bid is or is not submitted next year.

"To date, the BEF have carried out a high level scoping exercise in discussion with the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) and UK Sport.

"No commitments have been requested from the DCMS or UK Sport but all are agreed that we should look further at whether it is practical to host a WEG (World Equestrian Games) in the UK in 2018.

"The BEF have confirmed to the FEI that a formal bid may depend on the BEF and FEI being able to agree changes to the WEG format that reduce the cost of hosting the Games.

"At this stage the BEF is not in a position to discuss potential venues, budgets or funding streams; this is an expression of interest and at this stage in the process such speculation would be of little benefit."

The last major international equestrian event in Great Britain took place at Greenwich Park during London 2012