A stallion book cap in Europe might be desirable but it doesn't look likely

Lockdown was looking like being profoundly boring for the bloodstock industry, with the covering season ticking over but sales and racing ruled out. No feats of pinhooking prowess to discuss, no first-season sire action to subject to micro-analysis.

There we were, dusting off that weighty tome on breeding that we had promised ourselves for years we would one day get around to reading, to temporarily ward off the tedium. And then the North American Jockey Club lobbed a grenade into a springtime that has been almost soporific on stud farms with its announcement on Thursday that it was enforcing a cap on stallion books of 140 mares.

The response ranged from rejoice to resentment, along with an unnerving silence from some quarters that might lead you to think the eventual reaction will be ferocious and formally delivered, in legal challenges rather than on social media or in newspaper articles.