For the first time the history of the Olympic Games, Ireland will have a Dressage team at Tokyo 2020 after the Team Ireland Women’s team secured Olympic qualification in dramatic fashion at the Longines FEI European Championships in Rotterdam.

The team needed to come in the top three of the eight teams looking to secure a place on the plane for Tokyo.

With the final round to go the team was lying in an agonising fourth place. It fell to Judy Reynolds, whose Father Joe is Chair of Horse Sport Ireland, to do what she could and under huge pressure, she delivered in the finest possible style on her horse Vancouver K, smashing their own Irish Grand Prix record to score 76.351.

The combined scores saw the Irish team of Anna Merveldt, Reynolds, Heike Holstein, and Kate Dwyer, finish on a final score of 213.540, to finish second of the eight teams who had been chasing their Olympic dream at the final Olympic qualifier for European teams.

Feasible

“I can’t believe we have actually done it,” said Reynolds afterward. “We talked about it two years ago and it was like ‘hey lets try and get a team to Tokyo’ and I was thinking in the back of my head that, this is not going to be all that feasible, because at the time we didn’t really have the back up horses to do it.”

“But it all came together, this year especially. Heike’s mare improved so much and Anna got the horse and improved it so much, from doing no Grand Prix to this.”

“I was surprised myself that we have got to this level but wow, I can’t believe it. I had an absolutely amazing ride. Vancouver K was just fantastic today, he was really with me, he let me ride him and just did everything I could have asked of him.”

“I am so proud of all our riders for what they have achieved on this historic day for Irish Dressage and for Horse Sport Ireland,” said the Governing Body Chairman and father of Judy, Joe Reynolds.

“This was a real team effort from everyone involved in the team and backroom staff. This didn’t happen by accident, there was huge planning and effort to make this happen down to the finest details.”

Overshadowed

“For many years Dressage was probably overshadowed in Ireland by the other disciplines but today is a new chapter and we now look forward to planning for the Olympic Games.”

“This performance from our Irish ‘Girls In Green’ was simply outstanding,” said CEO Ronan Murphy.

“This is a historic day for Irish equestrian sport and I congratulate Kate, Anna, Heike and Judy.”

“A special word of thanks to our Dressage Chef d’Equipe Milan Djordjevic and to team trainer Johann Hinnemann. Ireland now has qualified a full team in Eventing and Dressage for Tokyo and we keep our fingers crossed for our Show Jumping team in their qualification quest here in Rotterdam over the coming days.”

The Irish Para-Dressage team start their European Championship competition tomorrow Wednesday, while the Irish Show Jumping team will be hoping to secure Olympic qualification in Friday’s team final.”