'We'd left the ramp at Cambridge' - the perils of international horse travel

When Enable steps out on to the Longchamp turf on Sunday for what is likely to be her last appearance on a racecourse, it will be the culmination of a career that has seen plenty of simple trips up and down the M11, round the M25, north on the A1(M) and west on the M4, but which has also encompassed some rather more complex journeys across oceans and continents.

Her final jaunt to France will be one that holds no fears for thousands of travelling Brits on their summer holidays each year: head for the south coast, roll on to a train heading 'sous la Manche' and off again the other side, then follow the signs to Paris. For her and many other high-class horses, however, there are treks to be undertaken that provide far more of a test of organisation and constitution.

When we, as armchair viewers, sit down to watch a Breeders' Cup or a Melbourne Cup, when we experience the thrill of seeing our favourites take on the domestic opposition, it's easy not to consider the logistics of their voyage to the other side of the Atlantic, the other side of North America or even the other side of the world. What they go through – and what they put their human helpers through in the process – can be a trial in its own right.