KILDARE’s Judy Reynolds enjoyed a fantastic weekend at the five-star show in Aachen where she set a new Irish international dressage Grand Prix Special record on Saturday evening, meaning she now holds all three international records, and finished in the top 10 in all three competitions.

With her parents Joe and Kathleen’s fabulous Vancouver K, Reynolds got off to a good start when finishing fifth in Thursday’s Grand Prix, scoring 75.275% in a big competition which attracted 33 starters.

The combination then went on to break the current record in Sunday’s Grand Prix Special when the 15-year-old gelding put in an exceptional performance to score 75.784%, again finishing in fifth place.

Anna Merveldt held the previous Irish Grand Prix Special record score of 74.20% with Bossonova, set in Munich in 1995, and Reynolds narrowly missed out on beating that mark when scoring 74.09% in the Grand Prix Special during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

CONFIDENT

A delighted Reynolds said: “We are really happy. It was by far his best Grand Prix Special test up to now. He was really confident and felt very secure in the ring. To finish fifth again in that company and ahead of two of the German team riders was really good and you couldn’t pick a better place than Aachen to break an Irish record.”

Saturday’s competition was won by America’s Laura Graves with Verdades after they scored 81.824%.

Germany’s Isabel Werth and Weihegold OLD finished second (81.059), with another German rider, Sönke Rothenberger, finishing third with Cosmo (78.314%).

Denmark’s Cathrine Dufour and Atterupgaards Cassidy took fourth place (78.118%), just ahead of Judy Reynolds.

That was not all from the Irish dressage sensation as Reynolds and JP, as he is fondly known as to his fans, completed a memorable weekend with a seventh place finish in the Freestyle on Sunday after scoring an excellent 76.525%.