Indonesia

NEWMARKET, UK -- "Bought him for Bahrain," is an oft-repeated phrase at the sales these days. With an expansion in the Bahrain Turf Series announced only recently and the stamping of the form of some of the island's better races by Royal Ascot hero Isle Of Jura (GB), it is perhaps no surprise that it has become a target for a number of owners and trainers. Bahrain was also to the fore at the July Course during a sombre afternoon on which John Hunt was in the minds of his...

The island is still there, nearly 50 years later, which would have surprised Nick de Meric at the time. He'd have assumed that there could be nothing left by now. "Because they were basically mining it off the map," he recalls. "It was made of iron ore. So they had these massive Euclid trucks, wheels high as a building. And all these men on shift work, living in long huts. Not quite a prison environment, but it was all-male, tropical heat, nothing to do but drink beer and play cards....