There is nothing that will wake you up quicker than a European horse sale. Well, there is nothing that will wake me up quicker than a European horse sale. The texts started beeping at 5:05 Tuesday morning.

Conformation photos. Walking videos. Trotting videos. Racy bay gelding, jigging and jiving, tail clamped, hopscotching across the puddles while Matt Coleman plays Steven Spielberg.

Nice horse, get going, raise the money, 25% accounted for, then 50%, only half to go, hell, we can do that on spec. Then, all for naught, the balloon slips from our hands, drifting, wafting. Enlarged tendon, sore to palpate, sound at the trot, scans thick, too much risk.

If I could only go back to bed.