Jessica Harrington was one of Ireland’s finest three-day event riders before becoming one of the most celebrated racehorse trainers in Irish history.

Selected for the Irish equestrian team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, she attended the Opening Ceremony but was unable to compete after her mount developed lameness on arrival in California. Her eventing career included four European Championships, the 1982 World Championships in Luhmühlen, Germany, and a third-place finish at the 1983 Badminton Horse Trials on her mare Amoy – one of the standout performances of her competitive career.

She also rode in the Olympic substitute competition at Fontainebleau in 1980 when Ireland joined the Moscow boycott. The daughter of Brigadier Bryan Fowler from Kells, County Meath – himself a silver medallist in polo at the 1936 Berlin Olympics – Harrington was born into a family with deep equestrian roots.

After taking out a training licence in 1989, she went on to train some of Ireland’s most celebrated racehorses, including Moscow Flyer, winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham in 2003 and 2005, and Sizing John, winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2017. She became the most successful female trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival.

She returned to the Olympics in 2012 as a high-performance advisor to the Irish equestrian team at London.