Rating: 
Summary: Tour-de-Horse
Review: A lively and hilarious overview of a very weird subculture, the Kentucky farms where prize stallions retire to lives of compulsory, micro-managed promiscuity.
Conley is great on the qwirks of pampered horses and humans alike. The book is really less about equine sex (it does answer certain invitable questions) and more about the incredible financial dealings that surround these animals. I was reminded at times of Michael Lewis' "Liars Poker", another great book about money-fueled nuttiness. Not particularly a horse or a financial person myself, but I couldn't put the book down.
Rating: 
Summary: A stallion is a stallion who lives at a stud
Review: Conley's book is a nice balance between the colorful people in the horse breeding business and the art and science of breeding itself. It is not intended to be a how-to book, as I believe was expected by another reviewer who didn't give it high marks. Rather, it is an insightful look into a world that most people know nothing about. I am a small time thoroughbred breeder living in New York City, (my brood mare doesn't live in NYC- rent is too high) and if I had a dollar for every person who giggled when I explained the breeding process I would be richer than the blue-grass elite. Now I can just carry a copy of this book with me at all times and simply hand it out to the gigglers to read for themselves because I don't get a dollar for the explanation or for the giggle. So- the book is fun, interesting, and entertaining. Read it and you'll understand what I mean when I say, "His produce led me to purchase a no-guarantee season for my mare who was covered twice before she caught, but unfortunately slipped before she dropped." I recommend the book for racing fans, especially those that are unfamiliar with the long and arduous process of getting a horse to the track.
Rating:
Summary: STUD wins it by a mile
Review: Conley's smart and funny tale about the high-stakes business of horse breeding brings to life a fascinating industry and all its quirky characters. Meet the insider who keeps a picture of her favorite stud on her desk in lieu of a boyfriend, the breeder who speaks about his horse's privates as if they were his own and the horse therapist who treats sexually frustrated stallions. And come to know the horses in all their neurotic glory: The promising stallion who won't run fast after a vandal chops off his mane and tail, the clueless stud who can't quite figure out how to lose his virginity, the angry mare who splits her date's member in half with one kick. And what about poor Honcho, the stud who faints when he's done? Conley makes all aspects of the industry this engaging (not just the horse sex), with literate observations that show how life in the breeding shed draws as much inspiration from Jane Austen as it does from singles bars. A highly entertaining romp!
Rating:
Summary: A new classic of horsey literature
Review: Expanded from his article about the world's most expensive thoroughbred stud, Kevin Conley's "Stud: Adventures in Breeding" falls squarely in the tradition of great New Yorker prose non-fiction. Like the various collections of the work of his fellow New Yorker author, Joseph Mitchell, Conely's book is funny and fascinating, its language lovely and lively. It's filled with incredible facts (who knew mares had clitorises?) and sneaky-hilarious observations (like the cool but horny horse who resembles Miles Davis).The book is digressive in structure, using the stories of various thoroughbred studs (from the most expensive to the cut-rate) as springboards to examine other issues connected to horses: ... of a system to monitor the bloodlines of thoroughbreds. In the end, after all the astonishing descriptions of horsing coupling (lots of drugs, rubber gloves, and sexual surrogates), ... the sex act of horses and people deconstructs, and the book offers some fresh--and pretty profound--insights into a subject (sex) which has been done to death over the years.
Rating: 
Summary: A Rather Chauvanistic View...
Review: Having been a horse lover all my life, this book caught my eye immediately. I read the dust cover with interest and decided to purchase it. I find the author's writing style crude and his patronistic view of women in the breeding industry to be rather tiresome. Secondly, I can't help but wonder what exactly motivates a person to write a book based on the sexual relations of horses. I will give the author credit, though, as he did make an effort to include certain historical information. However, as he traces the ancestry of the current sire back to foundation stock, I began to think I was reading the bible. (So-and-So BEGAT Such-and-Such, who BEGAT Thing-a-ma-bob) I'm sure there are hundreds of synonyms for the word "begat" and can only assume that the author purposely "beat a dead horse". Overall, I gleaned very little information from the book since anyone who's spent any amount of time around horses, particularly thoroughbreds, would already be privy to this information.
Rating:
Summary: Took me back to my Kentucky days
Review: I absolutely loved this book. The first chapter with Storm Cat was wonderful and I flipped when they said the name of the mare being bred to Storm Cat as I owned one of her sons. This was a very insightful book into the breeding industry. I worked at Overbrook Farm for awhile and I'm still fascinated by Storm Cat and the attention around him.
Rating:
Summary: Man's second best friend
Review: 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 a 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Non-Fiction Read
Review: I never would have bought a book about thoroughbred breeding on my own, but a friend gave me Stud, and much to my surprise it turned out to be the best non-fiction book I've read in a long time. It fulfilled all the requirements of a "great read." It was interesting, funny and quite moving. Conley succeeds in giving each horse a distinctive and appealing personality so it's fun to read about these grand and sometimes frightening animals and the life they lead. His descriptions of the fabulous horse farms - big and small - make you want to stop what you're doing and fly to Kentucky or California immediately! Best of all, he takes you into the very select and rarified world of horse breeding - a world you would never even know existed before reading this book. His portraits of the patrician owners who have been breeding horses for generations as well as the oddball characters who work in the breeding barns is really fascinating and fun. The book includes a surprising amount of history - which Conley manages to make very fresh and interesting. His observations - whether about British royalty, ancient horse trading or the origins of the first Stud Book - are fascinating, and his writing is as elegant as the horses he admires so much. This book would make a great birthday or Father's Day gift for someone's special stud.
Rating:
Summary: A Semi-Humorous Look At Thoroughbred Breeding
Review: If it weren't for the "Look Inside" feature of Amazon.com, I would have never bought this book. But, since I did "Look Inside," I'd been dying to get the book, yet didn't want to spend the price. I finally succumbed (er?) to Amazon! I am 100% not disappointed. With over 200 pages, I read this book in about 15 hours off and on. I could not put it down except to sleep and drive (otherwise there'd have been a terrible wreck!). The author, Kevin Conley, delves into realm of studs' lives. Starting out with (my personal favorite going on 7 years now) Storm Cat, the most successful stud since Mr. Prospector, and probably better! But Mr. Conley doesn't turn this book into a technical look at breeding for scientists and students, he turns it into a semi-humorous book for everyone to read. He talks about those things that you think are said in a stud barn, and they turn out to actually be true! I can't help but giggle and feel a little disgusted at what I giggled at, but then I say, "Hey! I'm not the one who wrote it!" He also goes down the interesting path of how the Thoroughbred actually began, and gives the background of every sire of a particular horse (can't remember his name right now), all the way back from the Arabs. The one thing that disappoints me is how Mr. Prospector was notoriously left out of this book. He was obviously the sire of the most stakes winners until his death in 1999. Another little quirk I had was when Mr. Conley would refer to Nijinsky II as just Nijinsky. I'm just weird like that, but those two things aren't enough to bring my rating down to 4 stars. But, if you're into horses, or maybe even if you're even not, this sure did turn out to be a good book to read! I'm very happy that someone could finally come up with a breeding book that doesn't make you look around the room to see if people are looking at the cover. And for those Storm Cat fans, yes, that's him on the cover.
Rating:
Summary: A Semi-Humorous Look At Thoroughbred Breeding
Review: If it weren't for the "Look Inside" feature of Amazon.com, I would have never bought this book. But, since I did "Look Inside," I'd been dying to get the book, yet didn't want to spend the price. I finally succumbed (er?) to Amazon! I am 100% not disappointed. With over 200 pages, I read this book in about 15 hours off and on. I could not put it down except to sleep and drive (otherwise there'd have been a terrible wreck!). The author, Kevin Conley, delves into realm of studs' lives. Starting out with (my personal favorite going on 7 years now) Storm Cat, the most successful stud since Mr. Prospector, and probably better! But Mr. Conley doesn't turn this book into a technical look at breeding for scientists and students, he turns it into a semi-humorous book for everyone to read. He talks about those things that you think are said in a stud barn, and they turn out to actually be true! I can't help but giggle and feel a little disgusted at what I giggled at, but then I say, "Hey! I'm not the one who wrote it!" He also goes down the interesting path of how the Thoroughbred actually began, and gives the background of every sire of a particular horse (can't remember his name right now), all the way back from the Arabs. The one thing that disappoints me is how Mr. Prospector was notoriously left out of this book. He was obviously the sire of the most stakes winners until his death in 1999. Another little quirk I had was when Mr. Conley would refer to Nijinsky II as just Nijinsky. I'm just weird like that, but those two things aren't enough to bring my rating down to 4 stars. But, if you're into horses, or maybe even if you're even not, this sure did turn out to be a good book to read! I'm very happy that someone could finally come up with a breeding book that doesn't make you look around the room to see if people are looking at the cover. And for those Storm Cat fans, yes, that's him on the cover.
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