KILDARE’s Judy Reynolds continues to set Irish records on the international dressage stage and last weekend became the first Irish rider in history to make the podium in a European FEI World Cup competition in Neumünster, Germany.

Riding the brilliant 17-year-old gelding Vancouver K, who is owned by her parents Joe and Kathleen, Reynolds produced two outstanding performances over the two days of competition to collect two third place finishes, and break her own record in the FEI World Cup Freestyle to Music Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.

Reynolds, who was crowned The Irish Field Dressage rider of the Year last week, secured her first podium place in Saturday’s Grand Prix. She set the standard of 75.10% and went into the lead with six combinations following her, including all the biggest names in dressage globally.

That score was eventually good enough for third place, with victory going to world number one Isabell Werth and Weihegold OLD, ahead of fellow German Helen Langehanenberg.

ANOTHER RECORD

Sunday’s Freestyle routine to ‘Lord of the Dance’ went down a treat with the judges and Reynolds once again broke her own record (80.20%), set only three weeks ago, when dancing her way to a score of 82.75%.

That left them in third place for the second time, as the only non-German in the top seven, just behind Werth (86.81%) and Langehanenberg (83.82%).

The result has moved Reynolds a step closer to securing a place at the FEI World Cup Finals which take place in Gethenburg, Sweden, in April.

Speaking to The Irish Field, and asked what her secret weapon was this weekend, Reynolds said: “I knew that we could do it. That’s why I said on the Monday (at The Irish Field awards) that we were going to break the record again soon. The test in Amsterdam, while it was good, there were definitely some mistakes in in. I knew that we definitely had the potential to make a better score.”

Despite starting their World Cup campaign later than expected, Reynolds and Vancouver K are thriving on the regular outings and are well on their way to the finals in Gothenburg.

“We had originally planned to start the World Cups earlier but then we couldn’t get to Stuttgart or Olympia,” she added.

“That pushed us to do the last few qualifiers and we know from the past that we thrive on more frequent outings, for the two of us it is a better system. So, as I said, it wasn’t necessarily the plan, but he is in fantastic form, it doesn’t take a lot out of him. He came out of the Grand Prix and he hadn’t broken a sweat.”

She now lies in 12th place on the league table with one more round remaining in ‘s-Hertogenbosch next month. The top nine combinations in will qualify for the final.

“Although we are 12th, you can say we are ninth. There are five Germans ahead and only three can from a country, so Isabell (Werth) as defending champion, plus two other.

“However, I don’t want to rest on our laurels, I would rather be sure,” the Kildare native added.