Stud:
|
Serious horseplay means big bucksREVIEW BY MEG CICCIARELLA"Sir So-and-so has retired to stud." To many men, the phrase presents an unattainable ideal, like being "assumed into heaven." For race-horses, the phrase can translate into millions of dollars. In his hilarious new book Stud: Adventures in Breeding, author Kevin Conley provides a documentary-like look at the world of racehorse breeding. Stud openly discusses three things everyone loves to talk about -- sex, phenomenal amounts of money and other people, all of which take over the horse world each year on Valentine's Day, when the Thoroughbred breeding season begins. Conley's reporting charmingly and affectionately brings to life the people, places and -- of course -- the horses that characterize the breeding lifestyle. We shiver at Seattle Slew's cold and appraising eye and understand the devotion of his groom. We marvel at Storm Cat's hauteur and dangerous good looks, as well as his earning power: his 2002 stud fee is $500,000. We embrace with an accounting professor's tenderness the filly Run, who miscarries her first pregnancy, and keep our fingers crossed that she carries her subsequent foal to term. What started as a story for The New Yorker about Storm Cat, an 18-year-old horse who makes $30 million a year, ends as a fascinating and sincere collection of narratives organized into 16 chapters, describing the author's visits to observe the action in the breeding sheds. Conley takes us from the world of Thoroughbreds in Kentucky and California, where live cover (the opposite of artificial insemination) is the name of the game, to the Standardbred arena to budget breeding in New Mexico and in the wild. All the while, his reporting flows with a wonderful ease -- and with as much tension as the foreplay he so often describes.
|
Support your 