What's love got to do with it? So sang Tina Turner, who can't have known how apposite were her words for the union of stallion and mare in the breeding barn.

It's as far from love as it gets: a “wham-bam-and-no-time-to-thank-you-ma'am” experience for the stallion, whose financial value makes it a strictly-business encounter lasting just a few seconds. With up to 200 mares to service during a breeding season that commences on February 14 - Valentine's Day - and closes in early July, there isn't time for him to get to know their names.

It's basically two mares a day, every day for 15 weeks - and that's if he covers them only once. Realistically, he'll cover them twice before they are pregnant, so a Leap Year is something for him to celebrate. Even your local lothario would buckle at the task.

As tough as life is for the stallion, the mare has it worse. She has no choice over the stallion she visits, and she is subjected to a near-bondage experience as decreed necessary by those who insure stallions for a living. The payouts would otherwise be too frequent to sustain within a sexual encounter fraught with risk of injury if left to nature's course.

Mares can only be bred to stallions when they are “in season”, which happens for a few days every three weeks. Once a “teaser” - more of him later - establishes the mare's receptiveness, a vet inserts his entire arm into the mare's rectum to feel, through the rectal wall, how developed is the egg in her ovary. When she is deemed ripe, she transfers to the covering barn to be prepared.

Even when “rank in season”, some mares will lash out their hind legs at the stallion who, in the act of mounting, exposes the most valuable and delicate part of his anatomy to the cruellest kick of all. For a stallion to be rendered “off-games” in this way would be disastrous.

Big, foam-padded boots are therefore fastened onto the mare's hind hooves. Then follows the attachment of the “twitch”, an ingenious device consisting of a length of broomstick with a loop of bailing twine at one end. The twine is placed over the tip of the mare's upper lip and twisted to tighten its hold, in the process releasing a surge of endorphins from the brain that act as natural painkillers.

When a mare is “twitched up”, she will usually stand stock still, thus minimising the chance of her lashing out. Just to make sure, one of the mare's front legs is held off the ground by a strap that is released as soon as the stallion safely mounts, which indicates what complicity she is afforded. Horses with one front leg off the ground will fall over if attempting to kick out with their hind legs.

The role for establishing whether a mare is in season belongs to the teaser. This is a male horse who contrives all the foreplay without ever being allowed to consummate it. Mares not “in season” are overtly hostile to male attention, so the teaser's life is doubly miserable. He spends his time dodging kicks and bites, and when his ardour is finally reciprocated, the mare is quickly whisked away to visit the stallion.

Although of no financial value, a good teaser is worth his weight in gold. The best ones will persist with a mare, despite her apparent hostility, because he has dectected the appropriate scent emanating from her. The mare will finally relent by raising her tail and “winking” to show that she is in season after all.

As a foil to this unromantic process, consider the case of Edoardo Ginistrelli, an Italian who moved to Newmarket at the turn of the century. He brought with him a half-decent mare who neighed at Chaleureux, a glorified stallion-cum-teaser, whenever he passed her box. Declaring that the two must be in love, Ginistrelli mated them together in 1902 and the resultant offspring, Signorinetta, won the 1908 Derby at odds of 100-1.