Man & Beast by Andrew Rule

Author:Andrew Rule [Rule, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522870886
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing

Stud

Garry Linnell

The Irish boys are putting on helmets and tightening leather straps. The boss is squeezing his scrubbed hands into a pair of germ-free latex gloves. The room is heavy with the odour of antiseptic lotion. It can only mean one thing: love is in the air.

And so it is time for Stick Man to go to work. Adrian O’Brien, Stick Man’s boss, enters his stall. ‘C’mon, lad, time to go,’ he says, patting his charge on the rump. The Stick knows this routine off by heart. If a horse could shrug, he’d be doing it now.

It’s late on a warm spring afternoon at the elite Coolmore Stud, deep in the Hunter Valley. In the next few minutes the brutal efficiency that lies at the heart of the global, multibilliondollar thoroughbred industry will be on display. But first, Stick Man, a 9-year-old white pony with the tousled mane of an 1980s rock star, must do what he does best—start a job he always leaves half-done.

O’Brien, tall, freckled and with the clinical demeanour of a surgeon, leads Stick Man out of his stall and into the vast breeding barn. Waiting there, shifting nervously, is Tempest Morn, a plain brown mare.

Trained by Gai Waterhouse, owned by the Filipino brewing billionaire Eduardo Cojuangco, and with a reputation for courage on the track, Tempest Morn won two Group One races. Now she’s a sex object. She arrived only a few minutes ago, trucked in from Mudgee. She was taken straight into a padded stall, where O’Brien bandaged her tail before wiping down her rear with a sterilising solution. The indignities only grew worse. Led into the cavernous mating arena, with its soft light, peaked ceiling, padded walls and freshly laid woodchip floor, she had thick felt boots strapped to her rear feet by two of O’Brien’s assistants. She hated that, kicking out in a hopeless attempt to remove them.

Now one of her amber eyes is widening as Stick Man approaches. A groom tightens the twitch—a stick with a loop of rope at the end that is twirled around her upper lip. The twitch is supposed to be a distraction, as well as a trigger to release a rush of pain-dulling endorphins. She shivers and whinnies.

In the horse-breeding industry, Stick Man is a teaser stallion, the warm-up man for the main act. But he’s also the equine version of the royal food-taster. He gets to sample this and that, but a seat at the banquet will forever be denied him.

If Tempest Morn, about to experience her first mating, kicks out with those booted feet, it will be the Stick who takes the punishment, not the hundred-million-dollar thoroughbred being prepared a few hundred metres away in a separate barn.

Stick Man nuzzles her flanks and she calms a little. But when he rears, clearly aroused by her scent, she scurries sideways, avoiding him. The Stick flashes his teeth and moves forward again. This time Tempest Morn allows him to land his forelegs on her back. He humps into fresh air.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.