I’M from Dunmanway in West Cork. I was always interested in farming but I didn’t know what a horse was until I met my wife Zoe!

We’ve three kids: James (16), Amelia (14) and Zack (11), and they’re able to help quite a bit as we work seven days a week. I’m the postmaster in Dunmanway and Zoe runs the post office, I’m an auctioneer, part-time farmer and I’ve a taxi and chauffeur business too.

1. Brookpark Vikenti (Master Imp - Tullineaskey Butler’s Simon, by Ballysimon) continues to fly the five-star flag for Japan. Tell us about breeding him.

I bred two Master Imp horses that year, a filly as well. She was out of Brookpark Jazz, a Balda Beau mare Trish Ryan competed for us and the two foals grew up together. They were equally fine horses and I always talk about those two as the best horses we bred.

Brookpark Vikenti’s dam had a lovely temperament but sharp. She’d never kick, no badness in her but a quirky mare. She actually should have bred more good horses. We had a number of other horses out of her but they never reached their full potential.

Vikenti was known as ‘Lofty’, Loftus O’Neill [Master Imp’s owner-breeder] loved to see young fellows coming to the yard with mares and took a great interest in what you bred.

2. Was breeding him your proudest moment as a breeder?

I suppose it was the proudest and saddest in that we knew he was good. All the ‘experts’ picked on him and from a breeders’ point of view, it really bothered me. My wife has been around horses all her life, we knew he was a very good horse.

If I had the horse now, I could have kept him competing and travelling with Mike [Ryan] but at the time, the kids were young. You just couldn’t justify it, so I sold him on. At the end of the day I’m a businessman. He would have been sold anyhow, I just would have liked to have got what he’s worth!

It depends where they go afterwards too, it’s pure luck sometimes but we hear about him all the time. Zoe would be very good to follow up any horses we bred and Kazumo [Tomoto, Brookpark Vikenti’s rider] is very fair and open about giving information, we could go and see them anytime. At Ballindenisk, he invited my daughter down to the stables to see the horse. Little things like that mean a lot. Jackie, his groom, would be in touch with Zoe too.

They were unlucky in the show jumping at Pau but the horse knocked himself on the cross-country the day before. The plan, hopefully, is Badminton next year and if they’re there, we’ll be there.

3. You mentioned in a previous article in The Irish Field that you wound down the sport horse breeding side after an unsuccessful day at the foal sales and switched to pinhooking thoroughbreds. Is that still the plan?

No, we’re just too busy now with work and the kids, it’s rugby, hockey. We still have a couple of leisure horses but you can’t be everywhere!

4. How do you think sport horse breeding has changed in recent years?

Life has gone very busy for everyone and there’s an awful lot of people that are gone out of it. Some of them, like myself, got a bit disheartened and weren’t getting a just reward. It makes an awful difference when you can produce the horse yourself.

Sport horse breeding has gone more professional, I think it had to. We have to follow what they’re doing in Germany and Holland, for example, where they’re getting massive money for dressage and show jumping foals. They’re doing that for years. They’ve made it professional and they weren’t just breeding horses because their father did.

Just because you have a mare, doesn’t mean you should breed that mare. That used to grate with me. The mare needs to have something done, be related to something, to back her up. It goes back to my philosophy that the mares have to have something done to shorten your odds.

That said, horses are an addiction. And breeding a good one is the dream. You wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning if you didn’t have any dream. You have to have ambition.

5. Prefixes - you’ve always been a strong advocate of a breeder’s prefix being retained?

100%. It should be illegal to remove a prefix, the breeder gets zero to no recognition as it is. If you want to put your sponsors name on the horse, put it in front of the prefix.

Zoe practically knows where every horse we bred is and we can follow them through the prefix. Some Americans contacted us recently to find out about the breeding of Brookpark Ruby (Kroongraaf), the only way they found us was through the prefix.

6. You were the youngest member during your term on the Irish Horse Board and an advocate for ‘fresh faces’ on the Board every four years. Happy to see this in the latest election result?

I think it’s brilliant, it’s fresh blood, it’s fresh ideas, there’s people gone in there with serious industry knowledge. Look, I was a young fellow from West Cork but you have Geoff Curran now, for example. He’s ridden at the top level and he also comes from a family that breeds horses. That can only be good.

7. Do breeders get enough recognition? And how can this be improved?

They get very little to zero recognition. The horse [Brookpark Vikenti] was second in Ballindenisk in May, we were mentioned once there. That was an international competition in Ireland, surely Horse Sport Ireland knew the horses competing there? Would it be an idea to send out an email to their breeders and invite them along? Even by being contacted, they’re being recognised.

8. If you could have bred any horse in history?

It would be between Arko and Supreme Rock. I watched Arko and Nick Skelton jumping, he was just a beautiful horse to look at as well.

Supreme Rock is a bit of sentimental value as he was bred in West Cork but he was just a machine of a horse. We saw him going around Badminton with Pippa Funnell, he didn’t have a fifth leg, he had a sixth leg!

9. Breeding sport horses - would you do it all over again?

I would and I will. We do miss it, we miss foals around the place, even on a wet and windy night like tonight when you would be going out to bring them in. We’ve good facilities; an arena and stables and Amelia is very interested in foals and youngstock, so we will.

10. Favourite part of Ireland?

It would have to be West Cork. I do a lot of chauffeuring work with American clients and they can’t get over the greenness and scenery around every corner. We really don’t realise what we have in this country.

Zoe, Amelia and Zack Kingston meeting Kazuma Tomoto and Brookpark Vikenti at Ballindenisk this year \ Courtesy of Kingston family