Ian Hume-Dudgeon

Ian Hume-Dudgeon was one of the first men to represent Ireland in the three-day event at the Olympics. At Helsinki in 1952, along with Mark Darley and Harry Freeman-Jackson, he finished sixth in the team event, one of only six of the 19 teams to have three riders complete the course. It was Hume-Dudgeon and Freeman-Jackson who persuaded Lord Killanin to send an Irish equestrian team to the Olympics for the first time. Hume-Dudgeon went on to appear in two more Olympics, 1956 and 1960, and three European Championships.

Hume-Dudgeon’s Irish-born father Joe Hume-Dudgeon served in the Royal Scots Greys cavalry regiment and also went on to train the British eventing team at the 1948 Olympics, and then the Irish teams in 1952 and 1956. Joe once rode the first, second, and third placed horses in one competition, from a field of 81, at the Royal Dublin Horse Show.

Ian Hume-Dudgeon was born at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, where his father was posted at the time, and was educated at Harrow School before joining his father’s old regiment. During World War II, Ian was severely injured in both legs at Normandy, and it was only after lengthy surgery that his legs were not amputated. He was subsequently awarded the Military Cross.

Despite being left handicapped, Hume-Dudgeon continued riding with an adapted riding position using a forward saddle. This did not stop Hume-Dudgeon from enjoying a successful eventing career. He finished second to John Shedden at the inaugural Badminton Horse Trials in 1949 on his father’s horse Sea Lark, and in 1950 and 1952 he won the Grand Prix at the Royal Dublin Horse Show in Go Lightly.