American Pharoah And The Horse Sex Industrial Complex

The history of horse breeding dates back centuries and is much, much weirder than you can possibly imagine

Illustration: Tara Jacoby

American Pharoah, the first Triple Crown winner in more than 30 years, is taking to his post-racing life quite well. But, as Joe Drape of the New York Times reports, retirement doesn’t mean the champion gets to relax.
Now that he has been put out to stud, Pharoah is busy siring what many hope will be the next generation of Triple Crown contenders. While genetics isn’t everything in horse racing, Pharoah’s customers are banking on his championship pedigree to the tune of $200,000 for each of 160 mares he will cover (a horse-person word for “have horse-sex with”) this season. 


While humans have bred horses for various reasons—hunting, agriculture, war, etc.—for thousands of years, breeding for sport as we know it today dates back to 17th century England under Charles II, an obsessive horse racing fan. His successors William III, Queen Anne, and George I kept horse racing as a royal tradition, and by 1727, horse racing was popular enough in England to spawn the Racing Calendar, the first horse racing trade publication, advertising race results and upcoming events for the English public.

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Practically all of the thoroughbreds we watch at the tracks today can trace their genetic lines back to the horses Charles II and his successors imported to England to kick off their horse racing empires. A genetic study performed in the early 2000s found that the 500,000 contemporary thoroughbreds are descended from just 28 “founder” horses, and a whopping 95 percent can trace their Y-chromosome back to one “superstud,” the Darley Arabian, born in 1700.
The name “Darley” refers to Thomas Darley, a Brit serving as consul to Syria at the turn of the 18th century who, according to his own account, bought the horse from Sheikh Mirza. There are differing stories over the price paid for the superstud, either 300 gold sovereigns or a flintlock rifle.
Believe it or not, the Syrian version of this story is a bit different. Sheikh Mirza wrote to Queen Anne to claim that the horse was “foully stolen” by “British sailors.” Adding to the confusion, the colt was not shipped from its home in Aleppo but rather was transported first to Smyrna in Turkey before embarking for Britain.