Horsetrader is the thrilling, compulsive story of the rise and spectacular crash of the Sport of Kings.Robert Sangster was the man responsible for the boom. together with Irishmen Vincent O’Brien, the world’s finest trainer, and stallion master John Magnier, Sangster undertook the revolutionary policy of buying ‘baby’ stallions – the world’s most expensive yearlings. And the man who could win at this game, they decided, was the man who bought them all. they sent prices through the roof in bidding wars fought with breathtaking daring. Top stallions became worth three times their weight in gold – the breeding rights to them became a licence to print money.This book traces the gripping story of how Sangster and his little band of Irish horsemen ransacked the world’s most prestigious bloodstock auction, the Keeneland Sales in Kentucky. It witnesses too the terrible crash – the bankruptcies and the ruined thoroughbred farms. Written with the full co-operation of Sangster himself, Horsetrader is the inside track on an awesome bid to corner the thoroughbred market.

    Affectionately known as "Old Bones," he was born May 30, 1915, at the W.D. Knight farm, near Lexington, Kentucky. He was never much to look at but throughout his amazing life he showed that he loved to run and possessed a gentle nature and a winning spirit. An unknown in 1918, he won the Kentucky Derby. He went on to become America's top winner of cup races and, according to many experts, the greatest thorobred ever developed in this country. Exterminator retired in 1924, at the age of nine, when he pulled up lame in his 100th race. He died in 1945, at the ripe old age of thirty. Exterminator is buried on the Kilmer farm, near Binghamton, New York, beside his constant companion, the pony PeanutsII, and near his old stablemate, Sun Briar.