A breed apart

WHILE all the other members of the Irish track and field team busied themselves packing and making their final preparations for this week’s European championships the “newest” sensation of the squad, Geraldine Hendricken, had other things on her mind.

“I couldn’t join them until Monday,” she says, reflecting on her other hobby. “I had a horse sales in Goresbridge on Saturday and I just had to go with it. I had a filly ready to go she was eating me out of house and home. I had to sell her before the winter.”

The 32-year-old Carlow athlete breeds sport horses for hunting, jumping, eventing and riding schools and it is just one of a number of activities that keeps her ultra busy. Her day job? She is a teacher in St. Andrew’s College in Blackrock, Co Dublin.