HORSE Sport Ireland has appointed an interim para dressage High Performance director ahead of the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, where it looks like Irish riders have secured two qualifying places for the nation.

Dutch dressage rider and coach Debora Pijpers has been appointed to the role, replacing Dara Kearney. Pijpers has extensive riding and coaching experience following seven years spent at the stable of Dutch Olympians Coby and Marlies van Baalen as a manager, rider and trainer.

The 27-year-old was a member of the Dutch team that won the gold medal at the 2013 European Championships for Young Riders. As a coach, she has guided Dutch para athlete Demi Vermeulen to a bronze individual freestyle medal and a silver team medal at the 2014 World Equestrian Games, as well as individual silver and team bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

“I’m delighted to work together with these talented Irish para dressage combinations. I have seen a lot of potential in Keysoe and I’m very much looking forward to working together with everyone involved in order to develop and expand from potential to performance,” Pijpers said.

Irish Paralympic places

The FEI released the list of 14 nations and additional individual countries qualified for the Paralympic Games earlier this week. Teams got their qualification through seven routes – the host nation, 2018 WEG, top seven on the ranking lists, one team from continents America, Asia, Oceana and Africa. However, the African team place cannot be allocated.

The rules state that should a region not have an eligible team, the unused slots will be allocated (regardless of region) via the ‘Reallocation of Unused Qualification Slots method’.

David Stickland of Global Dressage Analytics, a Senior Research Physicist working at CERN in Geneva, has predicted, and published, through his research that two of those places will go to Ireland, through Grade V rider Tamsin Addison and Grade I rider Michael Murphy.

“There are six extra individual places, because there is no team from Africa and, in addition, there is one spare individual place in both the Oceana and Africa region. When you look at the next ranked riders in the world, it is two French, two Irish, Norway and Switzerland. So it may take a little while to work its way through the system, but I don’t see any problem with it,” Stickland explained to The Irish Field.

Stickland also said that Ireland would have a strong case to get another slot through the Bipartite Commission Invitation allocation, which the national federation must apply for before March 16th.

Allocation

The places in Tokyo can be allocated to any rider who has the minimum eligibility score and will be decided on by the High Performance director.

Speaking to The Irish Field on Thursday, Tamsin Addison said the team have done their maths with the help of Stickland. She applauded Horse Sport Ireland’s High Performance system for the achievements of having teams in all three Olympic disciplines, as well as Paralympic dressage riders, qualified for the Games, for the first time ever.

“This is such good news. To have all four Olympic disciplines represented is just a brilliant achievement for Horse Sport Ireland. This took a lot of work and is something to be celebrated,” Addison added.

The British-born rider has gotten the minimum eligibility score with her two horses, the nine-year-old Fahrenheit and the 11-year-old mare Donna Siesta on whom she finished eighth in the Freestyle at the 2019 European Championships in Rotterdam. She is busy training for the year ahead and will be ready should she receive a call up for Tokyo.

“Debora Pijpers is over tomorrow [Friday] for training. She goes to both Ireland and the UK every month to train those on the shortlist, which is brilliant.

“She [Debora] is great, she is very proactive and works really well with our individual trainers as well. Things have got a lot more serious with para; it’s not just trotting in a circle anymore. It requires a lot more prep and planning and a huge amount has to happen behind the scenes,” Addison added.

Changes in para dressage format at the Paralympic Games include teams of three riders, instead of four, like all other equestrian disciplines. The three competing riders won’t be chosen until the Games themselves, on completion of the individual titles on the first two days of competition, meaning all four team riders will ride in the individual ranks. The para dressage competition will be held from August 27th-31st.