Susan Mary Barrantes (née Wright, previously Ferguson; 9 June 1937 – 19 September 1998) was a documentary filmmaker and the mother of Sarah, Duchess of York, as well as the maternal grandmother of princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
[4][5] In 1972, Susan caused a stir in society circles by leaving her family to move to Argentina with professional polo player Héctor Barrantes.
Selling more than half the farm to the polo-playing Australian media magnate Kerry Packer, she relocated to a large flat in the Recoleta-Palermo borough of Buenos Aires and set up a television production company, making films about horses.
While returning to her country home on 19 September 1998, the Rover 400 she was driving collided head on with a Renault catering truck on a two-lane highway in flat countryside.
[9] The driver of the truck, Jose Maria Rodriguez, suffered a broken ankle, but Barrantes was not wearing a safety belt and was decapitated, aged 61.
[10] Susan Barrantes is buried beside her second husband in a vault beneath her home, next to a polo field on the "El Pucara" estate in Tres Lomas, Argentina.