The little-known sires who still bear an influence on the breed

When Jim Bolger first started out, he bought a couple of horses by Espresso "for 200 quid." No doubt the fact he was able to win races with both was primarily instructive of Bolger's own singular gifts.

Yet perhaps he might never have gone on to make quite the same impact on the sport, as a breeder at any rate, but for the fact that Espresso would always mean something to him - long after he was forgotten by almost everyone else.

Bolger suspects that he was probably only able to get his hands on the Espresso pair because their sire was inbred to Blandford, whose stock had by then obtained a fairly toxic identification with bleeding.