THE footpath outside Rosaleen Keane’s newsagents shop on Society Street for a radio interview during Ballinasloe Horse Fair. Thinking back, that was when and where I first met Tom Conlon, working part-time then for RTÉ and now the assistant director at the National Forensic Mental Health Services; and a keen event horse breeder and judge for good measure.

Horse-mad from a young age, his school years in Swinford involved switching seats on the school bus to catch a glimpse of every horse along the route and watching and re-watching a Mary King video.