It’s probably safe to say that behind every homebred filly or colt there’s a story. It could be as simple as one live cover, one pregnancy check, and a healthy foal _arrival–smooth sailing. Or, the process could’ve been a little more complex. I had the opportunity to breed a favorite Warmblood jumper that belonged to my university to an accomplished stallion that had also been at the university for a time. The mare, Koko, was in Virginia. Aslan was in Texas. The objective wasn’t rocket science: Make sure the mare was in heat, time her ovulation with a shot, order the cooled semen and have it delivered, inseminate the mare. But it wasn’t that simple. FedEx wasted the first shipment by sending it to Pennsylvania. Then Koko ovulated over a holiday weekend when no overnight shipping was available. But the third time, despite a sheriff’s roadblock delaying delivery for hours, Koko became pregnant and carried to term. Never mind the fact Mocha was born on a hillside in a raging thunderstorm; we had a healthy filly.

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t do enough homework before having this mare bred: The collection of breeding articles within our pages this month would’ve been a fantastic resource for planning.

I would have read up on breeding soundness examinations and asked our veterinarian to perform one to determine Koko’s suitability as a broodmare in the first place. After all, she was in her late teens and probably a maidenÑa combination that can reduce a mare’s fertility significantly (I didn’t know that either at the time). We later found out that Koko had been deemed unbreedable several years earlier, so it’s a wonder she caught at all.

Also, I might have asked for information on Aslan’s sperm motility and per-cycle pregnancy rate, and paid close _attention to the farm’s live-foal policy for cues about his fertility. Of course, looking back I realize his rates were probably stellar, considering that Koko conceived