Judy Reynolds

The Irish dressage stalwart tells Helen Sharp why the ‘Girls in Green’ have the edge, how her ‘ordinary’ horse has turned into a star and why the future is bright for her nation

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IRISH Olympian Judy Reynolds and her thrilling horse Vancouver K (JP) are making history for their country. They enjoyed a superb run at the European Championships in August, breaking three of their own records and taking fifth in the grand prix. This clinched Olympic qualification for an Irish team for the first time.

I meet Judy in a bustling Cavan Equestrian Centre during the Irish National Championships. Judy is here in her guise as coach to some of Ireland’s future stars. Since she and the all-female team, affectionately known as the “Girls in Green” (Judy, Kate Dwyer, Heike Holstein and Anna Merveldt), qualified for Tokyo 2020, dressage feels more important than ever before for Ireland.

Judy and JP are no strangers to the Olympics, having represented Ireland in Rio 2016. However, qualifying as part of a team was a different feeling for Judy.

“I’m quite experienced at competing on my own, with my own plan,” she says. “I knew that a lot of the pressure lay with me, that I couldn’t make a complete mess of it. But when I got on, I wasn’t nervous — I focused on riding smart; that means riding the horse underneath you on that day, not riding the horse you want to have underneath you.

“There was a long walk from the warm-up to the arena and we chose not to use the 10-minute box — we tend not to with JP as it can be secluded and he doesn’t like that. We can’t even stop for 10 seconds with him — he gets frustrated and hot and you can’t always get him back. It was military precision, but we were able to walk straight into the ring from the warm-up, and the second we walked in, I knew he was listening to me.”

Scoring an impressive 76.35%, Judy knew she’d done enough: “It was the team goal to qualify for the Olympics — I knew the test felt good but when I saw the scores, I could really celebrate.