As True in 2008
… as it was in 1984, when the Queen toured the Bluegrass looking for suitable studs for her broodmares:
Spendthrift Farms Owner Brownell Combs II explained the attraction of the area. “This is where the stallions are,” he said, “and the semen controls the industry.”
I came across the article linked above while searching for more information on Spendthrift, the subject of a new book by Mary Marshall, “Great Breeders and Their Methods: Leslie Combs II and Spendthrift Farm.” The book suffers from workmanlike prose but is redeemed by accidental timeliness, as Marshall recounts in painstaking detail both the history of the legendary farm and the biographies of its major horses such as Raise a Native and Mr. Prospector — names that have become part of the debate over breeding that’s erupted following Eight Belles’ fatal injury galloping out after the Kentucky Derby.
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