Harry Sweeney has his hand up a horse's backside. The mare looks put out by this intrusion. Her eyes dart about nervously and she shifts her weight before accepting five thick human digits probing her insides. After feeling the uterus and the swelling of the ovaries, Sweeney's arm, slick with mucus and excrement, reemerges. He doesn't even need to look at the monitor. "She's pregnant," he confirms, smiling.

As well he might. Foals bred on Sweeney's Hokkaido farm, Paca Paca (the onomatopoeic sound of a trotting horse), have sold for more than $1 million (¥102 million). In 2012, Deep Brillante, born on this farm, won the Japanese Derby, the country's most prestigious race. Sweeney later sold her sister for $1.79 million. The clump of cells inside the belly of this timorous mare could one day be worth a pile of cash.

Given the high stakes, owners strive to improve the odds by employing the services of proven winners. Deep Impact, one of Japan's best-loved and most famous racehorses, is also one of the country's leading live sperm donors. Hundreds of times a year, the stallion is trundled off from his home in a farm a few hours from Paca Paca to inseminate another unsuspecting mare. If this union produces a foal, Deep Impact's owner, Katsumi Yoshida, is rewarded with ¥30 million. So successful has the thoroughbred been that Deep Impact is currently earning ¥6 billion (almost $60 million) a year. And at 14 — middle-aged for a horse — the stallion is still young enough to sire hundreds more children, as long as the spirit — and the body — is willing.