How two brothers took a vice-like grip on France’s Arc challenge - one that’s been a century in the making

John Gosden is often apt to praise the few remaining owner-breeders who continue to play racing’s long game, who year after year plan their matings and pay their covering fees, not with the sales ring in mind but to furnish their own racing stables three seasons down the line. 

Their long and gradual demise in Britain has been a tale linked to some extent with the pace of societal change, whereas in France you could go racing at Longchamp little more than a decade ago and believe that entry to the Group 1 winner's circle was still almost a closed shop.

However, in the last 15 years French racing has changed as much as it did in half a century in Britain. Either diminished or entirely vanished in that time are the equine empires built by Daniel Wildenstein and Paul de Moussac, as well as those of Stavros Niarchos and RC Strauss.