WITH the principal yearling sales in Ireland and England concluded, and just the Arqana October Yearling Sale next week to come among the major European sales, I wondered about the subsequent careers of the yearlings that headed the market two decades ago.

Money doesn’t always buy you success, though it does often give you the best shot at it. The unbeaten career of Mrs Danvers, recent winner of the Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes, shows that there is still a place at the heart of racing for the ‘small man or woman’. Unsold at £1,000 last February at Ascot, she has now amassed almost £200,000 and what a prospect she is for next year.