I am a big horse racing fan. Every year during the pre-race parade at the Triple Crown and Breeders Cup I trace the sires and dams of the different racers. Quite a few are given space in this book.
In STUD: ADVENTURES IN BREEDING, Conley introduces us to Storm Cat, the highest paid stallion in America, and to Seattle Slew, who was still alive at the time the book was written. There's some interesting stuff about how spinal fusion saved Slew's life and how he returns to stand at stud almost as good as new.

The structure of the book is a bit hard to follow. We visit some of the great sires, and their breeding sheds where we are party to some of the inside secrets, such as the "teaser" stallion, a generally docile sort who gets the mares ready to be bred. We also go to Keenland for an auction where we meet the Arab sheiks and Irish high rollers who seem to dominate these sales. Later on, we're introduced to pacers and trotters where we find a difference approach. The pacers and trotters embrace artifical insemination, whereas that's a no no with the Thoroughbreds.

The most interesting part of the book for me was the historical background starting in 1704 when Darley Arabian was smuggled out of Turkey by Thomas Darley. Conley traces Storm Cat's ancestry all the way back to Darley Arabian, Northern Dancer (the greatest of all sires) and Nijinsky, the Dancer's son.

Conley also gives us a look at breeding hierarchy. The best stallions and dams breed in Kentucky. Others are shipped off to places like California and New Mexico, which doesn't mean these places don't sometimes produce a winner. We're introduced to California bred Tiznow, who won the Breeder's Cup Classic two years in a row, something no other horse has done.

It's amazing how much these horses are like human beings. Some are aggressive, some are moody, some are aloof. Conley brings this home with a visit to the New Bolton Center where Shetland ponies live on a preserve with almost no human intervention. Each stallion has his own little harem, but there's a definite hierarchy with a definite Alpha stallion. A funny part was when they were observed comparing fecal piles.

Although Conley has a fondness for the parenthetical remark, I enjoyed this book immensely and shall be looking forward to his next, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. A good writer is able to fashion an entirely unique world and Conley certainly does that here.