TRIUMPH over adversity. Those three words encapsulate what Irish para dressage rider Sarah Slattery has achieved.

A cancer diagnosis at the age of eight meant tendons from both her legs were transplanted into her left arm, which left her strength and mobility compromised.

Despite this, she is now one of the riders in contention for a place on Ireland’s paralympic dressage team.

Sarah, who is currently based in Holland, took some time this week to speak to The Irish Field and describe her journey from patient to Olympic hopeful.

“I was born and raised in Galway. My parents, Tom and Linda, are both riders, so there were always horses all around.

“Myself and my sister Sophie had ponies for as long as I could remember. When I was eight years old, my mom noticed a lump on my wrist. It kept growing and she took me to the GP, who sent us for a biopsy.

“They had the results back pretty quick and it turned out that it was cancer. Less than a week later, I was up in Crumlin getting treatment. It was an aggressive and rare form of cancer, so they wasted no time in treating it.

“They shrank it down with some chemo and then removed it. Because of the way the cancer had attached itself to the ligaments and tendons in my arm, when they were taking out the cancer, they had to remove all the things it had attached itself to.

“When I went down for the surgery, they gave me a 50/50 chance of keeping my arm. It turns out I was quite lucky. They had to remove ligaments and tendons from my elbow to my hand, but were able to replace them with ones taken from both my legs, which they attached to what was left in my arm.

“The plastic surgeon did a fantastic job with what he had to work with. I can’t make a fist and have reduced mobility in my hand and very little grip strength. I can’t make little movements, any movements I make are very big, if you said make a little flutter movement with your fingers; it’s a big wave movement.

“At the same time I got to keep my arm, which is amazing. I do have reduced strength in my legs, probably more so on the left side, but not so much. My ankles don’t flex, I can’t put my heels down fully and at first, when I began to walk, it was only on my tip toes.

“By the time I was 10, I was back riding again. I had a lovely pony, from Vinny Duffy named Henny, he was brilliant.

“I went to college and qualified as a beauty therapist, that’s the day job. I had my first daughter, Harlow, in 2010 when I was 20, and gave up horses for about six years.

“Myself and my partner moved back to Galway when we had finished college and I got back into riding. I joined the riding club and went back show jumping; basically because that was all I knew.

“Turns out I was better at winning rosettes in the dressage than the jumping, so I began to think more about doing that.

“Because of my arm, I had always ridden with looped reins, because I can’t close my hand. When I looked into riding in Dressage Ireland competitions, I discovered that I couldn’t ride with the looped reins unless I was a para rider. I began to think, ‘what’s this para rider?’

“Para Ireland organised a classification day, which is when Paralympics Ireland comes out and gives you a physical exam. They find out where your strengths and weaknesses are and then they grade you accordingly. I was given grade five, which is the most able-bodied of all the grades. I was delighted. I got my card to say I could use my reins in most of the Dressage Ireland competitions; both able-bodied and the para classes.

“I had put my poor show jumper through lots of dressage at that stage, so the next step was finding a suitable dressage horse. This was more difficult than we initially thought. A lot of dressage horses are ridden into the hand, which of course was not what I needed.

“I tried so many horses, with no luck. So my mom, who is from Denmark and has connections, began the search there. That was where we found my first horse, San Marino (Sam) in 2019. He is a complete gentleman and has a great temperament. He showed me the ropes really. I learned a huge amount riding him.

“After a lot of hard work, we won the Para dressage National Championships in 2020. I did four international shows between 2021 and 2022 and earned some really good results. He wasn’t a big flashy horse, but just did everything correctly, and was lovely to work with, which was just what I needed.

Travel

“At this point, I was still going back and forth to Holland. My Dutch trainer Niels Bax, and the Irish Para dressage trainer Debora Pijpers are based there, so it makes sense. Fortunately, my sister Sophie has a show jumping yard here, so I can base myself there.

“Unfortunately, Sam ended up going lame. Despite all our efforts, we couldn’t keep him sound. I decided to do ‘the right Irish thing to do’ and turn him out for the year and hope that time would heal him.

“When I was about seven months into [my second] pregnancy, my aunt in Denmark sent me a video of two horses. One of them looked fabulous, just exactly what I needed, so my mom and aunt went to try her.

“The horse was Savona. She turned out to be just what I needed. I trusted my mom and aunt, who had found Sam for me, to know what would suit. We decided she was the one. She went to my sister’s yard, where she rode her for me until after our second daughter Millie was born.

“Five weeks later, I finally got to ride Savona, and we haven’t looked back since. It was like she knew, she was so good to me.

“In June 2023, we went to our first international competition at the CPEDI*** in Belgium and we finished third in both the Freestyle and the Grand Prix.

“We then decided to relocate the entire family, myself, my husband Jonathan (Madden) and our daughters to Holland.

“At our second international show in Deurne, Holland, we achieved some more good scores, which saw us, exactly six months after Millie was born, selected for the Irish team at the European Championships in Reisenbeck, Germany, which was crazy.

“I was disappointed with how we did in Germany. A few simple mistakes really cost us, I think if we had had a bit more time together we could have done much better, but we were over the moon just to be picked.

“We went home for the winter, and Savona got to hang out in a big Irish field and relax. We started back up in January and competed in a few able-bodied advanced medium classes in Ireland, which were super, we did three classes and won them all.

“Now we are back in Holland, preparing for our first international of the year in Belgium in the middle of April. Team Ireland has four team places to be filled for the Paris Paralympics. The places will be earned by the riders with the highest scores at various selected international shows, which I think makes it very fair.

“Quite simply, if you get the scores, you’ll get the place. We are working very hard towards it. I’m so lucky. I have the most amazing support and team behind me. I’ve dragged my poor husband and kids to live in Holland for the summer.

“It’s the ultimate dream. If you had told me five years ago that I would be in contention for an Irish team place at the Paris Olympics, I would have told you that it was crazy. Just goes to show, you should never stop dreaming.”