THE dam line of Asgard’s Captain, my most recent winner at Musselburgh last month, can be traced back to a period I spent as a hostage of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad during the early nineties.

Having invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, Iraq soon found itself engaged in combat after the US and their allies declared war. As a locum working in the capital at that time, I was one of a number of foreigners held captive.