Chris McGrath podcast

Coming from a culture where most wagering stipulates a fixed dividend, in the startling event that your horse happens to see through his part of the deal, I tend to view the morning line on American races as named for the hangover evidently being suffered by its compiler.

The world we share with these amazing animals may be an ever-changing one, but its mysteries abide. We consider ourselves ever more knowledgeable, ever more certain, riding the slipstream of science. Yet how much do we truly know, when Afternoon Deelites holds out for all those years and then waits just six days before following his owner to whatever shore may (or may not) lie beyond the horizon of life?

What do these stallions have in common: Competitive Edge, First Samurai, Include, First Dude, Majesticperfection, Midnight Lute and Noble Mission (GB)? Okay, so you could also add A.P. Indy, Into Mischief, Lope de Vega (Ire), Medaglia d'Oro and Quality Road to the mix. But you would hope so, too, if you happen to be one of those highly paid advisors who tell their patrons that the only way to start a breeding program is with most expensive covers around.

What do these stallions have in common: Competitive Edge, First Samurai, Include, First Dude, Majesticperfection, Midnight Lute and Noble Mission (GB)? Okay, so you could also add A.P. Indy, Into Mischief, Lope de Vega (Ire), Medaglia d'Oro and Quality Road to the mix. But you would hope so, too, if you happen to be one of those highly paid advisors who tell their patrons that the only way to start a breeding program is with most expensive covers around. Because these are the dozen sires responsible for mares that made...

"Now why did I do that?" For some of us, the more painful that question becomes, the easier the answer. It'll be right there in that empty bottle, greeting you on the table in the morning. For those of you whose conduct has more complex influences, however, apparently there's a handy publication out there called The Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. And you thought horse pedigrees were a niche interest. In a recent edition, researchers from the universities of East Finland and Liverpool crunched data from 15,000 Finnish men commencing...

"Now why did I do that?" For some of us, the more painful that question becomes, the easier the answer. It'll be right there in that empty bottle, greeting you on the table in the morning. For those of you whose conduct has more complex influences, however, apparently there's a handy publication out there called The Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. And you thought horse pedigrees were a niche interest.

Even in a market like this one, weirdly insulated from economic and geopolitical chaos, trading Thoroughbreds will always remain a precarious business. Speculators never hesitate, then, to pounce whenever the odds appear skewed temporarily in their favor. Sure enough, with the dollar squeezing other currencies dry, around one in eight of the yearlings sold at the Goffs Orby Sale this week is said to be heading to the U.S.; and they'll have plenty of company out of Tattersalls next week. To one who constantly berates breeders both sides of the...

In this business, simply "doing the math" would stop us right in our tracks. Luckily, we have algebra on our side. A daunting equation can always be rescued by that helpfully vague variable, 'x', the unquantifiable ardor of wealthy people: their competitive instinct, their sportsmanship, or simply their outsized egos. At the top of the market, after all, the dollars they spend are not the same as the dollars used by the rest of us to buy coffee or gas. It's not like "real" money at all. But that doesn't...

Even as the British Turf grieves a revered sovereign and, in the same person, its most cherished and indispensable servant, I hope you'll forgive me for instead reflecting on the loss, only the day before, of someone she would have loved to be typical of all her subjects: a horseman, and true countryman, who divided his time between the international bloodstock circuit and an old rectory in rural Yorkshire.

Our sport thrives on anticipation; our business, on outcomes. But actually it can take a while to unpick one from the other—especially when even a race as storied as the GI Travers S. is not just an end in itself, but also a potential means to viability for the whole program of whoever is lucky enough to own the winner.

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.

In this instance, you really can't say that the grass is any greener on the other side of the fence. Take your dystopian pick: the floods of Kentucky, or the desiccation of Europe, where I've just returned from a vacation that seamlessly united the city parks of England and Italy in the same wasteland, with just a few bleached spikes still protruding from the baked, ashen earth.