(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

This morning I did a research report on a famous man in the world of horse racing, and the SCANDAL that is his love life, which includes an ex-wife who owns a racing stable called the [Name Retracted] Stud Farm.

I just sent the report to my boss, who works across the corridor from me. A few minutes later I heard her voice drift hesitantly out of her office.

Boss: So....a stud farm...that's a...horse racing stable?
Me: Yeah, it's a breeding farm. Male horses of breeding age are put out to stud.
Boss: They're studs.
Me: I think it's where the term came from.
Boss: Oh...kay...
Me: You sound nervous.
Boss: No, I'm just...going to assume the high-level VP who's going to be looking at this report will know that...

Comments

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

Everything I know about horses I learned from the Black Stallion books in my youth. Oh! And Man O'War. I don't think I even knew the more common definition of stud until later.

Come on, cafe. Tell me I'm not alone.

[shadoedseptmbr.livejournal.com]

You are not alone. ;) I think it used to weird my parents out a little when I would make up elaborate breeding records for my model horses based on what I learned in those books.

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaay!

I remember very distinctly the first time I read through those books and went from "I have no idea what is going on!" to actually understanding terminology and context. You win, though, on breeding records. :D

[moonwalker.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I'm not alone. Somebody else did it, too! :-)

[keestone.livejournal.com]

There's three or four of us upthread.

I'll add Black Beauty and the "Blaze" picture books to the list, but I think the detailed info was definitely from the Black Stallion books.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I learned it from reading Man O'War, yeah. Along with what a Quaker was. :D

[metallumai.livejournal.com]

I read all the Will James books as a kid, and all the other horse stories available, as I suspect all of us who wanted to be cowboys when we grew up did. But there are adult-level books that would be just as likely to give readers information about stud farms. What, all the mystery readers here and nobody mentions the Dick Francis books? Granted they're not Dorothy Sayers, but he does write decent mysteries, and they're ALL about racehorse society.

I don't think I ever read Man o War-- he was owned by Quakers?

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh man I just TOTALLY conflated Man O'War with King Of The Wind. Granted they're both by Marguerite Henry and I believe King Of The Wind was Man O'War's ancestor, so there is at least some method to my madness. :D

Man O'War wasn't owned by Quakers, but for a while his distant Arabian ancestor was -- or at least, he was in the book, which is somewhat fictionalised so I'm not sure if that part is true.

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

YANA. I went through a major horse-crazy phase in elementary school, with the Black Stallion books playing a major role. I almost certainly knew the horse-breeding definition of stud by the time I was nine and didn't learn the other one until many years later. To this day the breeding stallion definition of stud is usually the first one that comes to mind when I hear the word.