THE sport of eventing evolved from cavalry horse trials and Jimmy Wofford grew up immersed in both worlds. His Kansas childhood was spent at Fort Riley, the renowned home of the US cavalry, where his father Lt Col John W. ‘Gyp’ Wofford was based.

Wofford senior, a former US military attaché to Ireland during the ‘Emergency’, was a show jumping competitor at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932. Jimmy and his brother J.E.B notched up three more Olympic appearances between them; Helsinki (J.E.B) and then Mexico and Munich, where Jimmy won team silver medals on the great Kilkenny.