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WHEN fortunes can be won or lost by a nose, it is no surprise that horse racing is full of folklore about how to pick a winner. But one sporting fable – that winning horses have large hearts – turns out to be true, at least for steeplechasers that compete over relatively long distances.

For almost as long as people have raced horses, owners have believed that spotting a potential winner is akin to spotting a horse with a big heart. “It would be quite nice to know when you are spending your $1.6 million that you have a bit of an…

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