John Gosden was on his way from a sale to his stables – driving on the wrong side of the road – when a caller from the States pestered him with the only question that matters on this side of the pond:

When does Golden Horn arrive?

So, how’s your week going?

Graham Motion can be forgiven if he answers that question by curling into the fetal position and hiding under his desk, or disappearing for a few days with the dogs and a backpack into the woods of northern Maryland, or lashing out with a profanity-laced diatribe against the forces of fate that rose up against him.

Then again, that would not be Motion, whose tamped-down British sensibilities preclude such dramatic behavior – bloody hell, Bob’s your uncle, stiff upper lip, and all that jazz.

On the last day before Congress adjourned for the 2006 elections, legislators hastily passed an amendment to a port-security bill, one that never was debated and that few lawmakers had read or understood. Called the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act,” the tacked-on amendment effectively shut off U.S. customers’ access to online poker sites. Hundreds of thousands of poker players lost tens of millions of dollars as many of the leading poker sites shut down.

Confirm Tonalist as among the likely Breeders’ Cup Classic participants who can go north of a 110 Beyer Speed Figure after his third 110-plus number of 2015 – a 111 for his Jockey Club Gold Cup victory last Saturday. With Liam’s Map now headed for the Dirt Mile, I still count three others with the potential for a figure above 110 – Beholder, Honor Code, and American Pharoah. I know the Triple Crown winner has not gotten there yet, but the Haskell Invitational strongly suggested that he can. And to win the Classic, he will absolutely have to.

Charlie Whittingham and his partners Howell Wynne and Mary Bradley had one of the country’s best horses poised for the 1985 Breeders’ Cup at Aqueduct. But for one of the few times in his Hall of Fame training career, Whittingham was not sure which way to turn.

It was 1995, and Ken Kirchner was a finalist for the presidency of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. He did not get that job, but he noted that Ted Bassett and D.G. Van Clief from the Breeders’ Cup were on the selection committee.

“I wrote a proposal to them on why they should hire me to run their simulcasting operations,’’ Kirchner said. “They liked it.’’

They hired him as a consultant in 1996 to oversee simulcasting and wagering beginning with the Woodbine Breeders’ Cup.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” was a line written more than a hundred years before the 1999 Thoroughbred racing season in North America. Even so, Jimmy Toner couldn’t help but take the sentiment to heart.

Being a jockey’s agent and therefore unable to resist, Derek Lawson spent the last few days of the Los Alamitos September meet and the first weekend of Santa Anita counting the winners he should have been riding. He stopped counting after seven or eight, which was probably best for his peace of mind, and then headed for Las Vegas to decompress and mentally prepare for the next several months while his banged-up rider heals.

In the 30 years before the first Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1984, the Jockey Club Gold Cup provided a similar conclusion to the racing season, crowning nine Horses of the Year with an honor roll of winning Hall of Famers including Nashua, Kelso, Buckpasser, Damascus, Affirmed, and John Henry and runners-up including Seattle Slew and Spectacular Bid.

It is fascinating to watch the great trainers get their horses ready for the biggest race of their lives in the Oct. 31 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland. Last week, it was Richard Mandella winning an exhibition race with Beholder, whose 99 Beyer Speed Figure meant absolutely nothing. On Saturday, it is Shug McGaughey’s call to pass up the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont to run Honor Code in the $400,000 Kelso Handicap on the same day there, a race against lesser competition at a less-taxing distance. I love it all.