When Count Orlov-Chesmensky was exercising his horses at his Khrenovoye estate, fed them from luxurious platters and insisted that they be addressed to as "Your Excellency", he could not perceive that two centuries later the refined and civilized French, whom he admired, would butcher a great-granddaughter of one of his favorite mares, only several miles from Paris.

This wondrous story began last August, when representatives of the French equine association called Cheval francais came to Russia. The Russians showed the French places of their trotting glories.

Despite the fact that the Orlov breed is at the moment on the verge of extinction, the guests were impressed by the appearances of the Orlovs. Having quickly calculated how much money they could make with a properly advertised show with Count Orlov's products, the French proclaimed their desire to bring our horses to Europe. And even promised to cover all the expenses.

For that occasion they even remembered the once popular "Russian days" in France. The entrepreneurial capitalists calculated how exotic troikas, prancing at Vensent racecourse would markedly improve the popularity of their gambling system. The show was to take place on 21 November. Everything seemed to work out just fine. The impoverished Russian breeders were tempted by a possibility of a free travel abroad and a unique opportunity to advertise in Europe their Orlovs, and so they were happy to accept the proposal of their Western colleagues.

After the Russians have successfully crossed four borders, late at night 120 kilometers from Paris they were suddenly taken away from their vans and required to send the trotters to a vet quarantine. The people were placed at some backwater hotel, and the horses were put in boxes to have their blood samples taken. And it was here that unaccountable things began to happen. It appeared that according to the French all the Russian horses were infected with a host of awful diseases, long forgotten in the civilized world. The local vets have shoved to the hapless Russians some paper without any signatures and stamps and required that they go home with their animals. However, a couple of hours later the same vets said that not all the horses are "ill". A while later, only one animal appeared to be "infested". Without any further explanations the poor horse was confiscated, brought to a slaughter house to put an end to its existence of earth.

The French paid not a penny to the owner of the horse, who was only informed about that at the last moment. (Later at home the Moscow Hippodrome took pity of the victim and gave him a horse.). Instead of an equine festival, the Russians, who had dreamed of foreign glories, were hit smack on the nose.

Their return home reminded of the retreat of Napoleon's guards. Together with the horses, which have suffered in foreign stables, Moscow saw the arrival of the shocked and wondering people. The first thing they did was to retest the animals. The result was the same - all the horses appeared to be absolutely sound and healthy.

To get to the reasons of that enigmatic story appeared to be harder than to establish the whereabouts of the "gold of the party". The official authorities we applied to mumbled about some technical disagreements and suggested that we do not "make a hill out of a mole mound". The witnesses of the scandal turned out to be not so reticent and came up with their own version of what had happened.

Strange as it was, the blame for what had happened was to be placed of the Russians themselves. Or rather on those strange conditions in which we find ourselves. In Russia one can buy a pedigreed horse for next to nothing - for around $900. And in Europe a schooled and trained animal can cost around $40,000. And so the Europeans are not interested in direct supplies of Orlov beauties to their markets. The Russians were bringing to France the best representatives of the breed. Under favorable conditions they could attract direct buyers to Russia. And somebody did not like that. After a fairly long pause, which lasted several months, this Spring a team of French vets visited Moscow. The foreigners took blood counts of the hapless horses using Russian-made preparations. When they received a negative result, the French said goodbye to their Russian colleagues and went home. Next, Russian experts went to France and undertook there a similar procedure, but using local preparations.

Judging from the fact that the parties to the negotiations are clearly unwilling to provide any details of their activities, all of those travels had the purpose to play down the scandal as soon as possible.

This Autumn a second trip of the Russian delegation to France is planned. To be sure, if the parties fail to neutralize the embarrassing situation, any "Russian days" will be absolutely out of the question.

But even this time hardly anybody would guarantee that no Russian horse would end up at a French slaughter house.