I RETURNED home from my second major championship on Sunday with mixed emotions, again. Elation for Judy Reynolds who scored three personal bests and finished fifth at the European Championships – what a result!

Last September at the World Equestrian Games in Tryon, I met with Judy and her husband Patrick Heavey following the cancellation of the Freestyle and they were totally devastated. Patrick reminded me of that conversation and story I wrote when we met on Thursday after Judy’s record breaking performance.

The couple have worked so hard with the lovely JP (Vancouver K), who hasn’t always been so perfect in the ring, and who Judy was encouraged to sell a number of times as a young horse because of his outbursts. But she is so incredibly determined and here they are as Ireland’s most successful dressage combination ever, and on their way to Tokyo. Fingers crossed everything goes well with JP’s preparations for 2020.

In contrast, the show jumpers had a desperately disappointing week. There was damage control on the opening day, when each rider faulted once, but it unravelled in the first round of the Nations Cup competition on Thursday and the margin was too large to claw back. Like Tryon, they finished one place outside the Olympic qualifying places and now only have one change left, at the Nations Cup final in Barcelona in early October.

Rodrigo Pessoa and the high performance committee have received some backlash online this week surrounding their team selection. Should O’Connor have been selected on a nine-year-old, why was Paul O’Shea left off the team with a more experienced horse, are the questions being asked.

“We decided to go with these four. There are a lot of factors to take the committee to reach a certain decision. Most of those factors, the people on the outside do not know. We have to take everything into consideration, not just that the horse jumped double clear in Dublin.

“I can understand the frustration of the rider and the owners, and I can talk with them. But those decisions are taken in private, they are confidential and I cannot share with the public,” Pessoa said this week.

It is last chance saloon time now in Barcelona. Time for everyone to get together again and put their best foot forward to get the job done once and for all.

Meanwhile, the European Eventing Championships are underway in Luhmühlen, Germany. With Olympic qualification already in the bag, Sally Corscadden has given some younger horses a chance to compete at their first championships.

I have been keeping an eye on the excellent EquiRatings prediction centre, which is an amazing tool for event riders and fans, and something which would greatly benefit and add to show jumping and dressage competitions too.

We wish Team Ireland the best of luck around today’s cross-country course! See full coverage in next week’s paper.