Sport: Love's Long Shot

At Paris' Longchamp track, the horses run clockwise, the clotheshorses from the maisons de haute couture run the gauntlet of admiring eyes, and bettors can be heard exchanging tips on both in Urdu, Sudanese, Hindustani or Cambodian. But from under the toppers and turbans in the grandstand comes only an occasional listless Allez! or Vite!; it is across the turf on the grassy reaches of Longchamp's infield that the passion of Parisian racing is concentrated.

There, for 25 francs (7¢) admission, stand "the shoeless ones"—the great middle-class portion of the crowd which is popularly...

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