A FEW weeks ago, the Racing Post republished an article I originally wrote for the French Jour de Galop newsletter seeking to give a British perspective to French jumps breeders on the reasons for the ongoing success of their produce.

The article gave various statistics about differences in breeding and development methods in France as against Britain and Ireland. These confirmed a conclusion I came to a long time ago, namely that the principal reason for the greater level of FR-bred successes lies in upbringing not breeding.