Stud: Adventures in Breeding - Hardcover

Conley, Kevin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582341842 ISBN 13: 9781582341842

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2002

Synopsis

The most expensive thirty seconds in sports.Every year, on Valentine's Day, the great Thoroughbred farms open their breeding sheds and begin their primary business. For the next one hundred and fifty days, the cries of stallions and the vigorous encouragement of their handlers echo through breeding country, from the gentle hills of Kentucky to the rich valleys of California.First appearing as an article in The New Yorker, Stud takes you into this strange and seductive world. We move from Lexington's Overbrook Farm, where the world's leading sire, Storm Cat, a lightly raced eighteen-year-old, brings in around thirty million dollars a year; to the auction halls, where sheiks and bookies (known more casually as the Doobie Brothers and the Boys) bid millions for Storm Cat's well-bred offspring. We visit Three Chimneys, where the twenty-seven-year-old Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, a senior citizen by equine standards, makes a rousing return to active duty after spinal surgery, and stroll through Running Horse Farm, on the banks of the Rio Grande, where a nearly unmanageable colt, Devil Begone, has found peace and prosperity servicing desert mares like Patty O'Furniture.Cheap stud, top stud, old stud, wild stud, from the Hall of Fame horse to the harem stallion with his feral herd, Stud looks at intimate acts in idyllic settings (and the billion-dollar business behind them), providing a voyeuristic glimpse of just how human the equine world can be.

About this title

Review:

"Stud has it all: money, sex, passion, wit." -- Financial Times, 20th July 2002

'An engaging book that provides a window into a bizarre world of sex, drugs and money' -- Guardian

'Conley is the Bill Bryson of the breeding shed' -- Sunday Telegraph

'The funniest, most original and deceptively revealing study you're likely to read ... intelligent, stylish and thoughtful' -- Irish Times

'They don't come any racier than Stud ... a revealing glimpse of life in the breeding shed' -- Irish Independent

Synopsis:

Every year, on Valentines Day, the great Thoroughbred farms open their breeding sheds and begin their primary business. For the next 150 days, the cries of stallions and the vigorous encouragement of their handlers echo through breeding country. This is a look at that world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1582341842
• ISBN 13: 9781582341842
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288