“IT has always been my burning ambition to manage the Irish team. It’s a bit unusual in the first year you get your dream job that the world stops but the world will restart,” said senior show jumping High Performance manager Michael Blake this week.

It looked as though 2020 would be a hectic year for Clare native Blake, who was appointed to the job in December 2019, with a packed schedule of Nations Cup competitions leading up to the Tokyo Olympics in July. The Covid-19 pandemic has scuppered those plans, however in his typical no-nonsense fashion, Blake is focusing on the positives.