Agricultural History Review, Volume 42 Part 2 (1994), pp. 115–125

The article provides a case study of the operation of the thoroughbred horse breeding industry in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire during the nineteenth century as a first step towards its analysis at a national level. It analyses the changing theoretical underpinning of thoroughbred breeding practice and shows its relationship to changes in demand from the racing cormnunity. During the century the breeding industry changed from the predominantly part-time activity of famlers, racehorse trainers, innkeepers and gentry to an activity increasingly donfinated by larger stud farms and stud companies. Breeding could be carried on through the keeping of both stallions and brood mares, and changes and continuities are both identified in temas of the key places where stallions were based, of breeding costs in relation to stallions, mares, yearlings and foals, of general stud organization, of the roles of stud-grooms and stable grooms, and of the selling of stock through private treaty and auction means. Although conclusions are tentative, it would appear that only a minority of studs made a profit; although many others believed they had but failed to take sufficient account of depreciation in their accounting procedures. 

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