Marion Hughes represented Ireland in the individual and team show jumping at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games riding Heritage Fortunus, a stallion whose path to the Games was as unlikely as it was inspired.

Hughes comes from one of the great Irish equestrian families. From Cuffsgrange, Co. Kilkenny, her late father Seamus Hughes was a transformative figure in Irish sport horse breeding, bringing the Holstein stallion Cavalier Royale to Ireland and changing the face of the industry. Her uncle John Hughes was a highly respected equine vet, her great-aunt Mary Hughes was at one stage the leading breeder in Europe – from just two mares – and her aunt Ita Brennan bred the Olympic horse MHS Going Global. Nobody in the Irish show jumping community expected her to make the Athens team at the start of 2004.

Her primary horse, Transmission by Cavalier Royale, was not ready for the Olympics, and Heritage Fortunus was largely unnoticed. But as the fifth Irish team member in Rome she rode double clear in the Grand Prix alongside Kevin Babington and Cian O’Connor – forcing the chef d’equipe to put her on the team for Lucerne, where she also jumped clear – and eventually to Athens itself. The Olympic Nations Cup brought heartbreak: after two excellent rounds, Fortunus stood on his own shoe during the course, twisting it so badly that he went progressively lame and crumbled at the water fence, unable to continue.

Hughes won the prestigious Aga Khan Trophy at the Dublin Horse Show and has continued to compete and breed at the highest international level, carrying on the family tradition that her late father established.