IRISH dressage Olympian Abigail Lyle is currently sidelined with an injury, but she is preparing to make her presenting debut at the 2025 Badminton Horse Trials in May.

Abi will be tasked with getting the riders’ reaction after their dressage tests on the first two days of the major five-star event.

Announcing the news, she said: “As you will already know, I am wildly enthusiastic about my eventing, I even now have the x-ray to prove it!” referencing a recent fall while schooling cross-country, which left her with a fractured vertebra.

She continued: “I am so excited to announce to you all today that the one and only Badminton Horse Trials have asked me to be the person that interviews the riders when they come out of their dressage tests; basically, I’m the person that’s going to ask them if they just had the ride of their life!”

Abi, who went viral in a BBC interview after her test at the Paris Olympic Games, also appeared on a Horse Sport Ireland YouTube video last weekend to celebrate International Women’s Day, where she revealed she will marry her fiancé, Mark Vicar, at some stage in 2025 in a low key affair. Mark has been busy keeping her horses fit, while she recovers from her injury and she hopes to be back in the saddle in the coming weeks.