Harry Freeman-Jackson

Harry Freeman-Jackson 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 Ian Hume-Dudgeon, he finished sixth in the team event, one of only six of the 19 teams to have three riders complete the course. It was Freeman-Jackson and Hume-Dudgeon who persuaded Lord Killanin to send an Irish equestrian team to the Olympics for the first time.

Freeman-Jackson went on to become one of Ireland’s most prolific equestrian riders and competed at the four Olympics between 1952-64, and was a Chef d’Equipe on a fifth occasion. Freeman-Jackson’s finest moment, however, came at the Burghley Horse Trials in 1963 when he beat Derek Allhusen’s Lochinvar into second place to become the first and only Irish winner of Burghley (through 2025). His winning mount was the chestnut gelding St. Finbarr, the horse he rode at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics

Freeman-Jackson was born in Pakistan and served with the British Army during World War II. He was captured by the Germans at Dunkirk and was a prisoner of war until the end of the hostilities. After the war Freeman-Jackson moved to Ireland to become the Master of Ireland’s oldest Hunt, the Duhallow Hunt, Cork, in 1950. He rode with them for 40 years and was Master for 19. Freeman-Jackson also ran a a stud farm in Mallow.

Freeman-Jackson’s daughter Ginny was an international three-day eventer who married Charles Stanhope, the 12th Earl of Harrington. Their daughter Serena married Viscount Linley, the son of Princess Margaret, the sister of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Freeman-Jackson was still riding until a couple of weeks before his death in 1993. Sadly, he died just ten weeks before his granddaughter’s “Royal” Wedding.