Galway para equestrian rider Sarah Slattery produced a fairytale finish in the Chateau de Versailles after getting an 11th hour call-up to the Grade V Freestyle final and then producing a personal best score to finish seventh at the Paralympic Games.
"Fairytale is literally the only word for it," said the 34-year-old from Tynagh.
"This is only the second time I've ridden freestyle at an international competition and the score (71.795) was a personal best as well."
Slattery’s ninth place, with her 16-year-old bay mare Savona, in the Grade V individual test earlier in the week was just one place short of making the Grade V Freestyle final but it left her first reserve.
When one rider was forced to withdraw after today’s early morning vet checks she was suddenly propelled into the final and, once there, produced a dream ride.
The freestyle final is performed to each rider’s customised music and Slattery confessed she had only previously ridden hers once, so unprepared was she for reaching the final.
"Coming in here my goal was just to make selection for the Irish team and get a top 10. I never dreamed I’d make the freestyle final," she revealed.
"But my mother (Linda, who was also her groom in Paris) was insistent I had a freestyle prepared. I’d only actually ridden it once. My coach Niels Bax and I were down in the stables, running through it on video in the two hours prep we had beforehand.
"It was just magical," Slattery said of making the Grade V premier dressage final on her Games’ debut.
"I’ve just got the rosette and plaque for seventh place in a Paralympic final and I honestly don’t have words to describe it.
"Right now I’m struggling to take it all in. Savona is having a well-earned snooze and I think I need a nap myself because all the adrenaline has gone out of my body and I’m suddenly exhausted," she laughed.
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