Sad backdrop to fulfilled dreams

After a 41-year build-up, south Co Dublin born Nicola Cassidy is finally making her Olympic debut in the team three-day event at Horsley Park, but it comes 12 months too late for owner Conor Crowley to see his talented gelding Mr Mullins provide the horsepower.

Crowley, then treasurer of the international equestrian federation, died the day after his horse finished individual 18th on Cassidy's senior team debut at the European championships in Luhmuhlen, Germany last September. The first anniversary of his death comes on Wednesday, the day after the team three-day event finishes at the Sydney Games.

Losing such an important owner, employer and friend was a huge shock to Cassidy. Mr Mullins, now 11, is undoubtedly one of the most talented horses on the international three-day event circuit and, while Conor Crowley was alive, he simply wasn't on the market. Following his death, the offers poured in for the horse, but his widow Pat decided to keep Mullins and give Cassidy an Olympic chance.

That 18th place in the Europeans had come about after 40 years of hard graft. Cassidy started her riding career as a three-year-old, encouraged by her mother Sheelagh, herself a former event rider and now an international dressage judge. Cassidy progressed to riding at Burton Hall, where the late Colonel Dudgeon put her up on "an ancient 12 hand ex-show jumping pony, then a 13 hand racing pony that had no brakes at all". But the bug had bitten and it had bitten deep, so Cassidy embarked on the traditional Pony Club initiation as a member of the Bray Hunt branch, as well as hunting with the Kildares.

Sixth place in the British Pony Club championships in 1972 nurtured an already competitive spirit and, the following year, Cassidy was part of Ireland's bronze medal team at the junior European three-day event championships, also taking the Irish Field young event rider award. Less than 12 months later she was a reserve for the senior Europeans at Burghley, but when she just missed the cut, Cassidy decided to give horses a break. The lure of the equestrian world was too strong, however, and in 1977 Cassidy opened her own riding school at Donacomper, just outside Celbridge in Co Kildare.

A stint in Indonesia followed in 1983, when she trained the team that took silver at the South East Asian Games. Then it was on to Australia and New Zealand for a year spent breaking and training polo ponies.

Sixteen years later, Cassidy returned to Australia at the end of August with an Olympic dream finally realised - she had been shortlisted for the 1996 Atlanta Games with Princess Bo Guirey's Clonlea Dusty.

With eight faultless three-day event performances under their belts, Cassidy and Mr Mullins have become a supremely honed combination, even if the dressage doesn't always go according to plan. The Olympics is their biggest test to date, but if they pass it with the usual flying colours, Conor Crowley will definitely be watching it on a big screen somewhere.

TEAM PLACINGS (after dressage): 1, Australia, 112.6 penalties; 2, Britain, 115.2; 3, America, 125.4; 4, France, 140.2; 5, New Zealand, 143.6; 6, Germany, 150.4; 7, Belgium, 160.4; 8, Italy, 170.4; 9, Japan, 171.6; 10, Ireland, 175.8; 11, Spain, 199.6; 12, Brazil, 215.0.