Paralympian Sarah Slattery Named Irish Field Dressage Rider of the Year 2024

Ireland

Paralympian Sarah Slattery was presented with 2024 The Irish Field Dressage Rider of the Year award.

For the second year in a row a Paralympian befell the honour. In 2023 Michael Murphy received the award. The Irish Horse World Awards took place during a luncheon in the Palmer North Golf Club, The K Club, Straffan, Co. Kildare, Ireland on Monday 27 January 2025.

Third Time for a Para Rider

She is the third para dressage rider to win the award which was first presented in 1997

"What a whirlwind, a memorable year with Savona and it is great to win this award." said Sarah "I had promised my husband Jonathan that we would finish building our house this year but that has gone on hold as I received invite to Al Shaqab CHI in Doha, Qatar next month and the European Championships are a big part of our plan for 2025."

Rocket Career

Sarah Slattery only made her international and championship debut in 2023, sitting up on her mount Savona for the first time, five weeks after giving birth to her second child and four months before the European Championships in Riesenbeck, Germany.

The Team Ireland Grade V rider and her now seventeen-year-old Brandenburg mare Savona started their 2024 season scoring 70.925% for a top five placing in the Grade V Grand Prix Freestyle at the Belgian CPEDI3* in Waregem in the middle of April. The 34-year-old took last year off her day job as a beauty therapist to concentrate on getting to Paris. Sarah and Savona placed fourth in the Grade V Grand Prix A class at Hartpury in July and a week later they were nominated by then Para Dressage High Performance Director Debora Pijpers along with Michael Murphy and Cleverboy (Grade I), Kate Kerr Horan and Serafina (Grade III), Jessica McKenna and Davidoff 188 (Grade III) as part of the Team Ireland quartet for the Paralympic Games.

Sarah Slattery at the 2024 Paralympics
(Photo © Dirk Caremans)

Sarah opened her debut Paralympic Games, with baby daughter Millie watching from the Kiss and Cry area in her husband Jonathan's arms, scoring 68.410% for ninth place in the Grade V Para Grand Prix Test A and securing the reserve slot for the individual freestyle final which would ultimately prove crucial. Slattery, daughter of international show jumper Tom, was one of the three riders selected by Debora Pijpers for the team competition along with Murphy and Kerr-Horan. Sarah had based herself in The Netherlands with professional show jumper sister Sophie in the run up to the Games. The Niels Bax-trained rider improved her score to 68.895% in the Grade V Para Grand Prix Test A as her contribution to the team score for which would see Ireland complete in the top ten. Sarah's first Paralympics were about to turn into a dream debut when Brazilian Rodolpho Riskalla was ruled out at the horse inspection and she was into the Paralympic Freestyle Final. With just a couple of hours to prepare after the last-minute call-up she and Savona delivered the test of their lives on the biggest para dressage sporting stage in the world scoring 71.795% to move up to seventh place. It was only the second time ever the pair had ridden their Freestyle test. Sarah and Savona finished the year in tenth place in the FEI Grade V Para Dressage World Individual Ranking.

Mellor Named Star of the Month

Comber-based Irish National Champion Carolyn Mellor was presented with Star of the Month Award for September 2024 following the biggest win of her career at the Dressage Ireland National Championships in Ballindenisk, County Cork.

Carolyn's win came despite a bandaged arm and swollen knee after an unfortunate incident when unloading a horse at on the day before the championships which saw her dragged through gravel on her side. Mellor who represented Ireland at the FEI Dressage European Championships in Hagen, Germany in 2021, scored 66.630% with her thirteen-year-old KWPN gelding VSH Gouverneur M to win the Grand Prix national championship.

Previous Winners

Previous winners of The Irish Field Dressage Rider of the Year Award (first awarded in 1997) are as follows:

Yvette Truesdale (1997)
Heike Holstein (1998, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2021)
Katy Price (1999)
Anna Merveldt (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011)
Judy Reynolds (2008, 2014; 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; 2019
Helen Kearney (2012)
Roland Tong (2013)
Kate Dwyer (2020)
Abi Lyle (2022)
Michael Murphy (2023)
Sarah Slattery (2024)