The Horsemakers tells the story of 25 individuals or families that made massive contributions towards making the New Zealand thoroughbred internationally famous. It does not claim the people highlighted in this book are the very best 25 simply because the decision on who to include and who to leave out became a very subjective one, made by myself, a panel of one, unlike the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame which seeks consensus with a selection committee of seven.

Recording the history of these people became an obsession with the thinking that unless I do it now, it will never get done, and time will beat me and confine the subjects herewith into the unheralded heroes of the past. Their stories, crammed with anecdotes and worthwhile aspects of these people, would fade into obscurity.

In 1910, when J. G. Alexander was nine years old, his father, Thomas, bought the property Jack would later take over to found the Cranleigh Romney stud farm at Maxwell in Taranaki. The Cranleigh name soon garnered a reputation in New Zealand before gaining international acclaim and demand for its pedigree rams.

A man named John Handley Jnr had developed the property around the time of the Land Wars, with the homestead on one occasion burnt to the ground by disgruntled local iwi, who vented their feelings on Pakeha politics. John Handley farmed on until 1910, when Thomas Alexander bought the property and resolved the issue of succession for his sons for their future farming.