Shane Sweetnam hoping to capture nation's imagination in Versailles

When riders like Eddie Macken and Paul Darragh were household names and competing live on RTÉ. Do something special in Paris and we all might start jumping over our garden walls again.

CATCHING NATION'S ATTENTION: Shane Sweetnam is hoping to catch the nations attention and shine a light on showjumping once again. Picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Work-life balance? Best of luck finding the line where one ends for Shane Sweetnam and the other begins. There is no line. There never has been. Not when he was growing up in Castlemagner in North Cork. And not now in Wellington, Florida where he is based having turned his back on an IT career after college and made for the States.

The youngest of five, Sweetnam followed all of those older siblings into pony-riding. He was seven. Jerry and Marie Sweetnam, his mum and dad, worked as trainers. Horses were part of their daily bread. The animals had to be fed and the stables cleaned, in and around their school and their sport and everything else.