IRISH dressage rider Alex Baker has secured one of the two Minimum Eligibility Requirement (MER) scores she needs to qualify for the FEI Dressage World Championships, which will be held at Aachen in August.

Riding Elite Stallions’ 14-year-old Totilas son Top Gear, she scored 66.696% from the ground jury in the Grand Prix at the CDI3* Hagen in Germany, to finish 17th of the 30 combinations who competed. The class was won by Germany’s Charlotte-Maria Schurmann and Dante’s Pearl OLD on a score of 73.652%.

Speaking after Baker’s result, Horse Sport Ireland’s dressage high performance manager Anne Marie Dunphy commented: “Alex and Top Gear have been making steady progress since their FEI debut in Lier. The horse is gaining more confidence with every outing.”

This is the most recent in a series of increasingly positive results for Baker, after she also finished 11th in the Grand Prix Special at the CDI3* Fontainebleau, France, last week on a score of 65.128%. She now joins Abi Lyle and James Connor in needing only one more MER to qualify for Aachen, while Jess Dunn has already achieved both the scores she needs to compete there with Dan Its Carsten. Connor secured his first MER at the CDI3* Ornago in March, where, riding Vanotti, he scored 67.152% to finish fifth in the Grand Prix.