WHEN Jess Dunn declared for Ireland earlier this year, the Lancashire-based dressage rider had already achieved her FEI qualification for the 2026 World Championships in Aachen with Jennifer Whitaker’s Dan Its Carsten. After a top-10 finish in the Grand Prix Special at Lier CDI3* on her first outing wearing the Irish flag, and a subsequent seventh place finish on 69.50% in the Grand Prix at the Aachen Dressage Days show last month, she is on track to achieve her goal of competing there.

The self-effacing 36-year-old, who admits she sometimes lacks self-confidence, says: “I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself, because I feel like I’m tempting fate a little bit and who knows what will happen, but the way that the horse is going, he’s showing so much potential and I get such a good feeling from him, that I would like to think that we could get to the World Championships at the end of the year. A lot of things could happen during that time though, so I want to enjoy the process of becoming eligible for selection, and I want to do ourselves justice. After that, it’s out of my hands. That would be my aim for this year.”