Miswaki

I guess the whole point is that ours is a world apart, a sanctuary from the cares of the "real" one. But it still feels unnerving, to see a new cycle of the sales calendar open with such blithe indifference to a wider consensus that the global economy is scrabbling along the top of a precipice. Both Saratoga and Deauville benefit from a heady atmosphere that might easily induce a perilous incaution when a yearling stands there shimmering on a sale rostrum. But it was ever thus, and the market...

On the day of this year's French Guineas, Jean Lesbordes perused the runners in the paddock for the Prix de la Seine, made his way to the stands to watch the race, and then back to the winner's enclosure for another look at the victrix Hidden Dimples (Ire), a daughter of Frankel (GB). Thirty years earlier, Lesbordes had a much stronger connection to the winner of the same race. He was her trainer and the filly's name was Urban Sea. The fact that her name appears in the third generation...