Enable decision a boon to racing but don't expect others to follow suit

This month the Mill Reef and Sirenia Stakes winner Kessaar was retired following a productive two-year-old season, a decision lamented as "wrong on so many levels" by my colleague Lee Mottershead this week.

He was right to criticise the retirement of a promising and sound juvenile, which is the sort of action that induces despair for the Flat, but we had the most emphatic renunciation of that approach to the sport later in the week when it was announced that Enable, the most exciting British horse since Frankel, would remain in training for a crack at winning a historic third Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

Few had dared to dream of this outcome in the spring when Enable was revealed to have suffered an injury which would keep her off the track until the autumn. When that news broke many of us feared we had seen Enable on the track for the last time, that any subsequent setback would lead connections to choose caution and not risk bringing a valuable filly back from a long layoff.