THE Arqana August Sale returns this weekend, beginning one of my favourite times of the year, European yearling sales season. Pity the agents, consignors, sales staff and trainers who must complete this marathon that rolls into foal and breeding stock sales, but for me, I’m enamoured by all the immeasurable potential, the possibility of future stars dotted through the thousands.

Horses don’t know their pedigree or the market’s measure of their worth, and they perform as such. Million-dollar babies will later delight and disappoint, not always in equal measure, while their polar opposites can defy the odds or confirm the majority’s expectations. The bargain buys can mean just as much to those who parted with hard-earned cash to secure them, and they all cost the same to keep.