LONDON-based Joe Allen spent the months leading up to the Corrandulla show last Sunday juggling his role as the senior engineer with the Murphy Group on a railway line in London and organising the three show jumping arenas at his local agricultural show.

Allen grew up surrounded by horses at his family home in Corrandulla and in Rockmount Riding School, and worked at Galway racecourse throughout his university days as a member of the track staff, completing his thesis on “Relating the ground conditions of a racecourse to traceable soil mechanics”.