LEADING American equitation trainer Missy Clark and her husband John Brennan, a native of Co Kildare, endured a terrifying ordeal as a masked man smashed their car window as Clark was pulling out of their hotel in Lexington, Kentucky.

The couple, who are coaching students at the Maclay Championship finals, taking place in Kentucky Horse Park, were staying in the Residence Inn by Marriott Lexington North and on leaving the hotel at 4am, a man, dressed in black and wearing a mask, approached their Porshe Cayenne and smashed the driver’s side window with an axe.