The dangerous Palio di Siena may be harder to win but the bareback Italian horse race is only a little tougher than the rush to get to the world heavyweight title.
The starting line in Tuscany is packed with pageant, feuds and adrenalin, much the same as the line being formed to feed off the winner of Saturday's huge fight in Germany between Wladimir Klitschko and Tyson Fury.
Big Wlad is the king of his generation. He was Olympic champion in 1996 and has remained untouchable for about a decade as world heavyweight champion. However, the question arises as to how much longer that status will last for as this Saturday, in front of 50,000 people and after Rod Stewart sings, a real fight will break out.
Big Tyson now has the boxing brain to make life very awkward for Klitschko and that is why there's a feeding frenzy in the paddock, where the front runners are agitated and hopeful.
The arrival from nowhere of David Haye has only added to the fun. It's the same Haye that withdrew twice from a showdown with Fury and went 12 passive rounds with Klitschko in 2011.
Haye fights a tough guy called Mark De Mori at the O2 in London on January 16, which is decent return to the saddle for Haye after a three-and-half-year break.
Kubrat Pulev and Alexander Povetkin, both Klitschko victims, are still leading contenders and they form a triangle of front runners with Deontay Wilder, who holds one of the belts.
Perhaps the Uzbek hardman Ruslan Chagaev also belongs with his two eastern bloc fighting brothers and the swinging fists of Wilder.
On the rail, tucked in tight are about 20 hopefuls. They're a mix of the lost, the new, the promising, the protected and if they could all fight each other in a series of eliminators they would all improve.
Robert Helenius, Bermane Stiverne, Lucas Browne, Vyacheslav Glazkov and Luis Ortiz are potentially leaders. Bryant Jennings, Andy Ruiz, Arthur Szpilka, Gerald Washington, Charles Martin and Joseph Parker are all in a fresh chasing pack.
There's also an odd mix that includes the veteran Shannon 'The Cannon' Briggs, Hughie Fury, Mairis Briedis, Trevor Bryan, Dominic Breazeale and the man that would be king, Anthony Joshua.
It has to be said that Joshua is the only man in my long starting line-up that has so far not taken a punch as a professional or broken a sweat. He's a football striker who has never scored a goal, a cricket batsman who has never hit a six: he's a work in progress.
It's a common misconception that there are no heavyweights out there, nobody coming through and nobody to test Klitschko.
Most of the heavyweights in my fantasy world champions' race are unbeaten, protected and untested -- and that is the problem. It is boxing's problem today.
It is amazing that the 22 heavyweights on my starting line will somehow miss each other in the coming months. Povetkin v Wilder. Haye v Briggs, Helenius v Joshua. Jennings v Washington. Dozens of good fights and I doubt they'll ever get made. Sad.
Buncey's Vaults
Frank Bruno went to court and "won High Court backing for a lucrative world heavyweight title defence against Mike Tyson."
In the opposite corner was Lennox Lewis, the former champion, and his legal team. "Lewis had issued an injunction in an attempt to stop the WBC sanctioning Bruno's fight with Tyson." There was no brotherly love with the Brits, trust me.
Bruno had won the title two months earlier when he had beaten Oliver McCall, and McCall had won the title a year earlier when he had knocked out Lewis. The heavyweight division has always been a heart-breaking legal battlefield.
Lewis was desperate "to block the fight, which is scheduled for March 16 in Las Vegas." Lewis lost in court, Tyson won and Bruno retired. Then Lewis got revenge over McCall for the vacant WBC title and finally, in 2002, Lewis knocked out Tyson. Whew.
As reported in The Daily Telegraph, November 4, 1995.