Show jumper Tyler Lopes has not ruled out launching a bid to qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020.

“Every equestrian dreams of competing at the Olympics,” Lopes said. “It’s a long shot, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.

“I have a two-year plan in place, which I’m going to stick to, and then re-evaluate and see where we go from there. I’m taking baby steps.”

Lopes helped Bermuda win team and individual categories at the Caribbean Equestrian Association’s Regional Jumping Challenge in October last year.

He competed in the .70 category and was the island’s the top performer in Class 1 with Batteries Not Included. The rider has returned to Belgium to work with compatriot and two-times Olympian Jill Terceira and plans to compete in events during a ninth-month stint abroad.

“Jill and I got back in contact and I decided to go back out to her and to ride a bit more in Belgium,” Lopes said.

Lopes is fresh off a successful harness racing season.

His two-year old filly Google Me won the Two-Year-Old Boxing Day Stakes and set a new two-year-old record.

He set a new mare’s record and four-year-old record with Whited Family’s pony IC’s Overextended. He also established a new gelding’s record and captured an impressive treble of Boxing Day Stakes, Best Three Series and Champion of Champions titles with Arnold Manders’s pony Cherokee’s Ironman. Lopes also achieved the season’s fastest time of 1:02/2 with Manders’s pony.

“It was a very successful season and I couldn’t have asked for a better year,” Lopes said.

“All of the horses were phenomenal.”

Nick DeCosta, the former Driving Horse and Pony Club president, will drive Manders’s pony in Lopes’s absence.

“Cherokee’s Ironman is in good hands with Nick who will drive him until Tyler comes back,” Manders said. “Nick is a very experienced driver who will keep my horse safe.”