Jessica Harrington

The daughter of Bryan Fowler, a British Army officer who competed in polo at the Berlin Olympics of 1936, Jessica followed her father into equestrian sport. She hailed from a family that was once one of the largest landowners in Ireland. Her mother, Mary Walford, was also an award-winning equestrienne. Jessica would partner one of her father’s horses, Amoy, to finish third at Badminton in 1983 and the duo narrowly missed out on a team bronze at the substitute Olympics at Fontainebleau in 1980, after Ireland’s equestrian team decided to join the American led boycott of the games in Moscow.

Harrington’s second husband was a bloodstock agent, which encouraged her to take out a licence as a racehorse trainer in 1989, and she soon proved successful in her new career. In flat races, Harrington won the Irish 1000 Guineas, the Irish Oaks, and the Prix Marcel Boussac in France but was considerably more successful in jump racing. Her horses won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Champion Hurdle and the Queen Mother Champion Chase in England, and the Irish Gold Cup.