![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/BecJudy.jpg\")
<\/h1>\nIrish Olympic dressage rider Judy Reynolds has been the quiet achiever, creeping up the <\/span>world rankings and winning some top level shows. Success was put on hold a few years ago when her top gelding Vancouver K sustained an injury, but they\u2019re back better than ever, scoring personal bests and helping Ireland qualify the first dressage team ever for an Olympic Games at the Europeans in Rotterdam earlier in the year. The pair scored 76.351 in the Grand Prix for 10th, 78.252 in the Special for fifth and fifth in the freestyle with 85.589 and now have their eyes firmly on Tokyo.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s quite amazing what you\u2019ve done personally, and the team. How does it feel?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Surreal. That we achieved that with the team is pretty amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>And it happened quite quickly.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Yeah we talked about it a couple of years ago, about wouldn\u2019t it be great if we could do it, and then for it to come about, really in the space of a year is quite amazing especially because both of those horses of Heike’s (Holstein) and Anna\u2019s (Merveldt) are in their first year in Grand Prix. That\u2019s really a fast progression. Kate\u2019s (Dwyer) horse has been doing it a little bit longer but they all did so well. It\u2019s Kate\u2019s first championships so it\u2019s great that she was able to keep to all together and do what she did. It\u2019s fantastic that we are able to achieve the team qualification. <\/span><\/p>\n And for me personally, two personal bests\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n And JP is 17. So\u2026how? How do you keep him sound and how do you know how far you can push an older horse?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n There\u2019s no pushing with him. It\u2019s more calming him down and holding him back really. He is incredible and his will to go and to work is phenomenal. It\u2019s kind of now he\u2019s reached a maturity level where his brain and body have come together. He\u2019s Jazz\/Ferro so that\u2019s a pretty tricky combination but I think it also makes for tough horses. We did have a year out through injury when he was 15-16 and thought, oh that\u2019s a bit old for a horse to come back. It happened four days before the Europeans in Gothenburg and he was out for almost a year.<\/span><\/p>\n It was rotten timing too\u2026you\u2019d come 18th at the Olympics then you went to Central Park and won then Devon CDI then a great World Cup final.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n And we had a fantastic Aachen just before those Europeans. We\u2019d had a couple of top five finishes there and we were 14th in the world and we were going to the Europeans thinking we had a chance because it wasn\u2019t such a strong year. If ever we had a chance to do well, that was it. Then the injury!<\/span><\/p>\n But he actually came back better. Aachen was my first show back, which was either crazy or stupid! He showed how enthusiastic he was! I don\u2019t understand why he came back better. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that he had that time out. He\u2019s never been a horse that had had much time off. Not that he didn\u2019t get holidays, but he had never had an extended break. And I think also, Patrick (Judy\u2019s husband) kept saying to me, maybe we\u2019ll get a bit more time at the end and get to the next Olympics. The way it\u2019s looking, touch wood, it has worked out. He\u2019s just one of these horses that, I think as long as his body stays healthy, his brain and his will are there. He just has this will to go.<\/span><\/p>\n Story continues below the advertisement<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s your management of him now that he\u2019s older. Has it changed?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t changed particularly. After he was injured, we did change some things, but we do really keep it quite simple. I believe in just good riding and good basic horsemanship. He has a very good farrier to keep his feet in the best shape, he has a good physio, we have a vet check him regularly even if he doesn\u2019t have a problem, just to stop anything coming up. I\u2019m not someone who likes to inject horses unnecessarily. I don\u2019t believe in that. He goes in the field, he goes hacking. After this he\u2019ll probably have a month or two of tootling around a bit. He\u2019ll be ridden for five days a week, but no pressure. I have to keep his fitness, especially as an older horse, so I don\u2019t like to let them down too much. Older horses should keep moving but we\u2019ll back off the pressure. He very rarely does movements at home. I\u2019ll only really start doing movements in probably the last two weeks before the show.<\/span><\/p>\n Really? So what do you do for half an hour everyday?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Sometimes it can be quite boring! Occasionally I ask some else if they want to ride him and they get excited and jump at the chance and so I\u2019m really very happy for it! Off you go! Trot\/canter transitions for 40 minutes!!<\/span><\/p>\n So lots of transitions…<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Exactly. Transitions within the paces, transitions in and out of the paces. That\u2019s what we do; that\u2019s his basic work. Then there\u2019ll be little bits of travers or travers on a circle and stuff like that. But actual movements, no. That\u2019s two weeks out of a competition.<\/span><\/p>\n Being Irish, how did you end up in the dressage arena?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n I did a lot of everything as a kid. We grew up doing working hunters, show ponies, hunting and all the rest. Then I had a pony that didn\u2019t jump so we started to do a little bit of dressage on the side and I loved it very quickly. I got hooked. I love that information back and forward, the relationship with the horse, what you can teach them. To be honest, I wasn\u2019t brave enough to be an eventer.<\/span><\/p>\n I was in Ireland, you\u2019re talking twenty odd years ago, there wasn\u2019t much dressage so you became quite good, relatively speaking, within the competitions. I had a very good school master by then and it was great. I got to learn everything but at that point there wasn\u2019t that much competition in Ireland, maybe Prix St Georges. You went to a show knowing you\u2019d be first or second\u2026unless you fell off\u2026then you\u2019d be second anyway! I finished studying music at university, thinking I was actually quite good at this dressage thing and decided I\u2019d go to Germany for a season. <\/span><\/p>\n I went to train with Anna Merveldt. She was living in the south of Germany at the time. I went to my first show and came last. So, ok, I\u2019m not so good at all!\u00a0<\/span>I was overwhelmed going to the show. I remember Ulla Salzgeber was riding at that show and I remember thinking, ok this is a little bit different!<\/span><\/p>\n Story continues below the advertisement<\/em><\/p>\n Was it really scary warming up with all these people, thinking you\u2019re getting in the way?!<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Totally. I was totally out of my depth. I wasn\u2019t as good as I thought I was, but I\u2019m stubborn. So I chipped away at it and by the end of the year I started to get some good results and I thought, god I\u2019ve learnt so much in a year, there must be so much more to learn. I went for a season, went home for a couple of months and went back again. I did that about four times, then I sort of stayed. <\/span><\/p>\n At that point that was never going to be my career. Not at all. When I was down south with Anna though, people started to come and bring their horses to me.<\/span><\/p>\n So you mustn\u2019t have been too bad!<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n There must have been something there! I started to earn money that way. It was really Patrick (Judy\u2019s husband). We had started to go out by then. So he said he was coming over if that\u2019s what I was doing, and it just very organically became my career. I didn\u2019t really set out to do it. I\u2019ve never done my bereiter exams, I\u2019ve talked about it but never really got around to doing it, then the teaching developed.<\/span><\/p>\n And you were teaching show jumpers a bit as well. You taught Bertram Allen?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Yeah we shared a yard. I still do help the showjumpers out a bit in between. And I travel to Ireland every month to teach and people keep giving me horses to ride, usually the crazy ones. I seem to attract crazy horses. <\/span><\/p>\n Do you like the crazies?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n I do actually.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t you have to look after yourself as an Olympic rider?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n No I\u2019m actually the nutty one who will get on the four-year-olds, and the things that bronc and plunge and climb walls. I don\u2019t know, I like a challenge. I really enjoy the process of showing a horse that may have had some difficulties, that there is a better way. It\u2019s very much done through training the basics. I\u2019ll get on a horse and regardless of the level, I might spend six months doing transitions, circles, corners, straight lines.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not someone who does it fast. I don\u2019t do it with pressure. It\u2019s purely with time, and afterwards, with my horses, anyone can ride them, because they are correctly trained, they\u2019re not doing it out of fear. They\u2019re not doing it for any other reason except that they understand. And I really like that, that anyone can get on my horses and ride them. So yes, I take my time and I also believe that if you have that straight lines, corners transitions, circles, the rest is just a combination of that. The movements are then not tricks but the progression of that work.<\/span><\/p>\n You get horses in sometimes and they can do all the tricks, but it can\u2019t go straight ahead. So, I really do believe that\u2019s the foundation of everything and we really do take our time with that. I feel that\u2019s the right process.<\/span><\/p>\n Story continues below the advertisement<\/em><\/p>\n How many horses have you got in your barn?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n We like to keep it relatively small. We normally have 10-12 horses so that I can ride all of them, because I don\u2019t really want to have 30 or 40 horses and see them only so often. I want to know the horses, know what they\u2019re like in the boxes, really have influence over every aspect of their life. I usually ride eight to nine a day then generally a bit of teaching thrown in there as well.<\/span><\/p>\n Any rider fitness work?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n No not really. I\u2019m not that great at that stuff though we keep saying we must. I get beaten up by the physio and the osteo on a regular basis.<\/span><\/p>\n Who\u2019s been your biggest influence either within or out of the sport?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Well within the sport I\u2019ve had three. It\u2019s funny when you look back on your path, when I was in Ireland I trained with Gisela Holstein who is Heike\u2019s mother. They gave me my interest and start in dressage. With Anna, I really learnt how to ride and with Johann Hinnemann, he really gave me a direction and refined it. I\u2019m still with him now. We live about half an hour from him. I go to him as and when I need. Patrick helps me on a more regular basis.<\/span><\/p>\n Why did you pick Hinnemann?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n That was really an organic thing because when I was with Anna, she was training with him so I got some exposure to him there. Anna decided to move to Italy and I didn\u2019t want to make that move. I wanted to stay in Germany so I started travelling up to Hinnemann\u2019s yard and then I ended up moving closer to him.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s it like to warm up with Isabell, for example? All those questions us mere mortals want to know!<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n It is intimidating in the beginning, but over the years, we get on quite well because of all the competitors here, I probably see the Germans the most. I live only about 45 minutes from Isabell, so we\u2019d often see each other at competitions and she would be at national competitions helping her riders as well. So actually, that\u2019s become just a normal thing. Isabell\u2019s actually probably one of the nicest to ride with because you can predict where she\u2019s going. There\u2019s no kind of hairy turns or things like that!<\/span><\/p>\n How do you handle your nerves or is it just another day in the office?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n It is and it isn\u2019t. It was a little bit of a different dynamic here being on a team, having not had much experience with that before, so it was a different sort of nerve thing.<\/span><\/p>\n \n Because it was pretty much down to your ride, wasn\u2019t it?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Yes. But having to qualify for things like the Rio Olympics over the last few years, we\u2019d been under that sort of pressure before, so I knew I could handle that, but on Tuesday, Patrick and I went back to our hotel and did our normal show routine\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Which is?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n It\u2019s basically riding in the morning, depending on the time, go get breakfast, try to have a rest or sleep for an hour or half and hour and chill and then get ready and come back. So we did that which was really good to get focused so I was really looking forward to it actually.<\/span><\/p>\n A country like Ireland, which isn\u2019t traditionally a dressage nation and now you\u2019ve all achieved this historic team qualification. Is there a secret or is everyone just working at their own thing and then you\u2019ve come together?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n There\u2019s been great support from our federation over the last couple of years, really helping us with funding and putting us on a path because before that it was really just do your own thing. But we\u2019re all aware of this goal coming up and we all worked towards it. This year Anna has been travelling to Ireland on a regular basis to help Heike with her training. It has been a team effort in that sense.<\/span><\/p>\n So, next stop Tokyo?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n He\u2019ll have a break and we\u2019ll probably do a little bit of World Cup over winter but I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll aim for the final. We just need a couple of shows to keep us focused and heading in the right direction. Tokyo will come around really quickly. We have to earn our place in the team so we\u2019ll all have to prove our form next year. We\u2019ll look at that closer to the time. I think the judges have been announced so we\u2019ll make sure we show under each one of them, that they\u2019ve seen us. If you haven\u2019t seen one for a along time, you do want them to see where you\u2019re at a little bit. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not easy, doing all that competing and working so hard without big money behind you…<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n We have fantastic and generous sponsors. County Saddles are incredible. They only need to give us two saddles and we have seven. A couple of years ago all our tack was stolen. We were at a big yard and they took 80 saddles in one night. County came to us within three days with a trailer of saddles and said take and keep whatever you need. It was about two months before the World Cup Final. They made me a custom saddle and fast tracked it so I had it for the World Cup. <\/span><\/p>\n We have Horseware. They give us so many things. We have a great feed sponsor in Gain and supplements from TRM (And Patrick throws in that they take some of supplements themselves\u2026..though I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s recommended!) as well as Roekl and Alessandro Albanese.<\/span><\/p>\n You need it in such an expensive sport especially when you\u2019re doing it on your own. It makes a massive difference. And because we don\u2019t have a huge yard with massive amounts of horses it means we do need the sponsors to keep going. It\u2019s not easy but we love it. It shows that you can do it.<\/span><\/p>\n Story continues below the advertisement<\/em><\/p>\n You have to be on the continent though?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n That\u2019s why we\u2019re still in Germany. I\u2019d love to do what I do from Ireland, but at the moment, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s feasible if you want to ride at this level. I believe you need to compete against people who are better than you to become better and I don\u2019t want to become stagnant. I think we\u2019ll eventually go back one day, it is home, but not while we are competing at this level.<\/span><\/p>\n And finally, why\u2019s Vancouver called JP?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Long story. He came from Holland. \u201cVancouver\u201d so they called him Fanny as a stable name which wasn\u2019t going to work for us. My Dad had sold a Morgan car around that time so we thought we\u2019d call him Morgan but that wasn\u2019t going to work in Germany, everyone would answer you, \u201cmorgan!\u201d so then there\u2019s the company JP Morgan so that\u2019s how he got his name! It\u2019s totally random. (At this point Patrick explains that everyone thought they called him JP for Judy\/Patrick). But no, we\u2019re not that self obsessed! But everybody just knows him as JP. I need to come up with a better story really!<\/span><\/p>\n Judy Reynolds lead the Irish Dressage team to an historic qualification for Tokyo. Rebecca finds out what makes this elegant rider tick…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,4,1901],"tags":[1243,2001,1999,2000],"class_list":["post-47784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-dressage","category-grand-prix-dressage","tag-dressage","tag-irish-dressage","tag-judy-reynolds","tag-vancouver"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47784"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47813,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47784\/revisions\/47813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/salute.jpg\")
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<\/p>\nVancouver is by the great Dutch Stallion, Jazz – you will find a great selection of Dutch bred stallions that are available through frozen semen at International Horse Breeders…<\/a><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"