Penny Moreton competed in the three-day eventing at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games as one of the first three women to represent Ireland in an Olympic Games in equestrian sports – and as the most experienced equestrian on the team, with an unbroken record of competing at Badminton since 1952.

Deaf from birth, she had enrolled at the Hume Dudgeon School in 1952 to learn riding and remained there where she also acted as an instructress. She was a member of the Ireland team that won the inaugural World Three-Day Eventing Championship at Burghley in 1966. In Mexico, she and her mount Loughlin – described by Tommy Brennan as ‘the nearest thing to Arkle ever seen in the eventing world’ – advanced Ireland into second place after the first day of dressage, just ten points behind the Soviet Union.

In the cross-country phase, conducted in tropical downpours that transformed the course into a quagmire for the late-starting riders, Moreton and Loughlin suffered a crushing fall at the seventh fence of the final phase. Loughlin suffered a broken back and had to be humanely destroyed. Moreton suffered three broken ribs and a cracked collarbone and remained hospitalised in Mexico for several weeks after the Irish team departed.