Toby Keith has proven himself a hitmaker many times over. He might not have the heartthrob appeal of someone like Tim McGraw, but he most certainly has the hit songwriting gene.

This has led to quite a great deal of success for Toby. So, how does he do it? Well, he'll tell you exactly how he does it.

You can go to Kingsland, Ky., go to the Kingsland sale, and you can handpick the top yearlings in the sale that really look athletic. And if you buy 10 really nice athletic horses, one or two or three of them are really going to run good.

Whatever I wrote last year is what I record, and I have to live with that. I don't really go in thinking I'm going to stretch myself this way or I've got this kind of theme going or I want to use acoustics all the way through. I just look at each song and say, 'Here's what instrumentation I want on this song,' and I bring the guys in and we put the magic dust on it.