Review: Stud
Sep. 27th, 2012 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackup$tud: adventures in breeding is a pretty good specimen of a type of book I am a sucker for. It takes a topic that is not innately interesting to layman (the breeding of thoroughbred horses) and delivers information in a light, informative way. It doesn't do this perfectly, but it's a difficult skill, and if you're looking for something that will engage your brain without tiring it out, it's a respectable choice.
In general, what I learned is that the world of horse breeding is fucked. Perverted, in the oldest, truest sense of the term. There is something deeply broken about a system in which you end up with five human beings maneuvering to help horses have sex. It would be one thing if we were engaging skilled horse penis handlers* because we lived in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where the horses we depended on to carry news and medicine were mutated to near-behavioral-sterility. At that point, I can see horse penis handling being a valued and even prestigious skill. But we let these horses lose their courtship instincts because we like watching them run in circles really fast. If all the horse penis handlers were suddenly called up to go to war, and we were only able to breed stallions that could find the vagina on their own, we would not suffer. We would not suffer even if the next generation of horses ran around in circles at a slightly reduced speed. It's such a waste of human potential.
The system is made worse by what an incredibly long tail of value horses have. You could leave a stallion out with a group of mares and get the whole process done a lot less human intervention, but 1. humans don't want to waste any precious, precious horse semen on pregnant mares and 2. you risk injury to the horses. These are not cheap horses. At his peak, Storm Cat was bringing in one million a day during breeding season. Even wild horses occasionally injure each other in social and especially breeding interactions, and thoroughbreds are considerably more likely to do so because they're so high strung (because we bred them for speed). So they tie the mare down and use teaser stallions and the stallions end up behaviorally incompetent because they're in such an artificial situation. And the thoroughbred ruling body bans artificial insemination because they think live breeding keeps the breed natural.
Applying concepts like rape to animals is difficult and fraught. But wild and even most domesticated horses have mating rituals in which the female exhibits choice. And in breeding thoroughbreds, we take that choice away from them. We tie mares down specifically to prevent them from leaving or fighting back. If we were doing this with the intention of beating an animal, it would be recognized as morally wrong and illegal. If we tied them up for a human to sexually penetrate them, it would be recognized as wrong and (in some states) illegal. But somehow, it's okay if it's another member of the same species assaulting them. This too strikes me as wrong.
*No, seriously. Someone has to help the stallion aim, and if he's got a large penis or the mare is fragile, someone else has to hold up some sort of padding to keep him from thrusting too deep.
In general, what I learned is that the world of horse breeding is fucked. Perverted, in the oldest, truest sense of the term. There is something deeply broken about a system in which you end up with five human beings maneuvering to help horses have sex. It would be one thing if we were engaging skilled horse penis handlers* because we lived in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where the horses we depended on to carry news and medicine were mutated to near-behavioral-sterility. At that point, I can see horse penis handling being a valued and even prestigious skill. But we let these horses lose their courtship instincts because we like watching them run in circles really fast. If all the horse penis handlers were suddenly called up to go to war, and we were only able to breed stallions that could find the vagina on their own, we would not suffer. We would not suffer even if the next generation of horses ran around in circles at a slightly reduced speed. It's such a waste of human potential.
The system is made worse by what an incredibly long tail of value horses have. You could leave a stallion out with a group of mares and get the whole process done a lot less human intervention, but 1. humans don't want to waste any precious, precious horse semen on pregnant mares and 2. you risk injury to the horses. These are not cheap horses. At his peak, Storm Cat was bringing in one million a day during breeding season. Even wild horses occasionally injure each other in social and especially breeding interactions, and thoroughbreds are considerably more likely to do so because they're so high strung (because we bred them for speed). So they tie the mare down and use teaser stallions and the stallions end up behaviorally incompetent because they're in such an artificial situation. And the thoroughbred ruling body bans artificial insemination because they think live breeding keeps the breed natural.
Applying concepts like rape to animals is difficult and fraught. But wild and even most domesticated horses have mating rituals in which the female exhibits choice. And in breeding thoroughbreds, we take that choice away from them. We tie mares down specifically to prevent them from leaving or fighting back. If we were doing this with the intention of beating an animal, it would be recognized as morally wrong and illegal. If we tied them up for a human to sexually penetrate them, it would be recognized as wrong and (in some states) illegal. But somehow, it's okay if it's another member of the same species assaulting them. This too strikes me as wrong.
*No, seriously. Someone has to help the stallion aim, and if he's got a large penis or the mare is fragile, someone else has to hold up some sort of padding to keep him from thrusting too deep.
