Our columnist shares the tale of breeding Karen O’Connor’s WEG mount Mandiba and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

There were just two of us at the bar. The barman facilitated an introduction after discovering I was at the hotel for a meeting about developing an equestrian facility. Minutes later I was headed down a country road outside Ennis in County Clare, in the west of Ireland. We were off to see a mare “worth seeing, just five minutes down the road.”