O’Connor was one of four candidates for the show jumping position seeking the backing of their peers in a voting process conducted over the past two months. On Monday the FEI announced the Irish rider as the successful candidate for the show jumping post.

Irish eventer Sam Watson, who was a member of the Irish team which won silver at the World Equestrian Games, put his name forward for the corresponding eventing post, but the successful candidate was British rider William Fox-Pitt. There were no Irish applicants for the dressage equivalent, with the vote favouring Spanish rider Beatriz Ferrer-Salat.

Ireland’s Helen Kearney had contested the election for the para-equestrian dressage representative post but the outcome favoured Germany’s Angelika Trabert.

The newly-announced roles will last for a period of four years, and O’Connor takes over the show jumping position from Rodrigo Pessoa, who was elected more than two years before he became the manager of Ireland’s show jumping team.

Although giving no breakdown of the percentage of votes the Irish rider secured, the FEI stated that the number of candidates for the various positions showed a 100% increase over the last elections and that there was a 160% increase in the number of countries who had candidates seeking election.

It’s a frequent cry of riders that their views are not always given a proper hearing by the administrative body but FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez stated on Monday that the viewpoint of athletes was “central to the global decision-making process.”

That certainly wasn’t the case two years ago when the riders opposed the change to the Olympic format that means teams will have only three riders at Tokyo 2020 and beyond instead of the traditional four.

At least the Irish eventing team have secured a place at Tokyo 2020, thanks to their outstanding performance at the World Equestrian Games last week where they doggedly held onto the silver medal while being chased by Olympic champions France.

The show jumpers must wait until next August at the European Championships in Rotterdam for their next qualifying opportunity, having missed by one place in last Friday’s World Equestrian Games team final. Rodrigo Pessoa’s side had moved into sixth place, the Olympic qualifying cut-off, coming into the final day but an inspired Australian effort edged the Irish down one critical notch. Winners USA, silver-medalists Sweden and bronze-medalists Germany have all qualified as have Switzerland (4th), Netherlands (5th) and the Australians.

With the above four European teams now qualified, Ireland’s chief rivals for a Tokyo place at next year’s Euros will be Great Britain, reigning Olympic champions France, Belgium and Italy, all of whom finished below Ireland last week.

Away from the world championship action last Sunday there was a poignant Irish win at Bodenhein in Belgium where Peter Moloney won the three-star Grand Prix, an event dedicated to the memory of late Irish show jumper Jack Dodd.

The young rider, who had set up his own stables in Belgium, died as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash four months ago. Moloney won the jump-off on d’Atlantique Royale with Darragh Kenny making it an Irish one-two on Balou du Reventon.

After the disappointment of last April’s weather-cancelled fixture, Ballindenisk hosted international action at the weekend with two of the Irish eventing silver-medalists, Cathal Daniels and Saw Watson, joining in.

Jim Newsam claimed victory in the HSI CCI3* with Magennis.