The omission of Aidan O’Brien’s Epsom Derby hero from one of the biggest races in Europe on Saturday week in Leopardstown, worth a whopping €1.25million, seems to have left many disinterested as he instead heads off to the less than glamorous Southwell all-weather track six days later.
Fine-tuning preparations for a famous bid at the Breeders’ Cup Classic are being ramped up after an outstanding display in the Juddmonte International and the Ballydoyle maestro doesn’t feel that the Leopardstown showpiece is diminished without his stable star.
“We have to do what we think is the right thing for the horses,” said O’Brien, who will saddle defending champion Auguste Rodin, last year’s runner-up Luxembourg and Irish Derby hero Los Angeles. “The Champion Stakes doesn’t apologise to anyone ever because we have seen what has happened out of the Champion Stakes, year in year out the horses that come out of it.
“It’s Arc winners, Breeders’ Cup winners, it has happened every single year and we do have other horses that we have to slot in as well so we have to think of them. We think it could be a very good fit for Auguste going on to Japan, win lose or draw. we’re just trying to cater for everything and everybody really.
“If he [City Of Troy] hadn’t have done that [gone forward aggressively] in York, he could have ended up going to Leopardstown but he’s after doing it now and we wouldn’t want to do it again in a big race, it’d have to be different and we think what he did was going to set him up well for America, we think.”
British raider Economics, three from three this season for William Haggas, is the one which the Ballydoyle team have to beat in the Champion Stakes but it is hard not to get drawn back to City of Troy given the glowing terms which O’Brien has spoken of him in.
There may never be a better chance to land a Breeders’ Cup Classic – which takes place on the first weekend of November in Del Mar – given his pedigree for the dirt and O’Brien will be doing anything possible to add one of the greatest feathers of all to an ever-growing cap.
“We’ve tried very hard to win it a lot of times over 25 years, it’s a very difficult race to win. You’re going to a different world, different culture, different track, different surface, everything is different. It’s very tough. I think one of our horses to win it has to be a lot better than the opposition,” he said.
“It’s one of those races that you don’t dream about because it’s so difficult but you try and hope. Every year you tweak things looking for different horses and different ways of doing it. You look under every stone that you know that you can look under and then hopefully you’ve looked under enough of them.”
American-style stalls will be flown over to Southwell – where he will work over a mile with four or five stablemates (as Giant’s Causeway and Galileo did in the past) – and O’Brien insists that the apple of his eye has improved since York.
He would make an even better four-year-old, but a career in the breeding shed beckons at the end of this season.
“He’s probably very unique, he’s a different kind of a horse so I’d imagine he’ll have to go off to stud. He’s just too different really and from day one, he was like that. He’s not too big, he’s not too small, he’s perfectly proportionate and balanced, he’s not extreme in any way. It’ll be interesting.”
O’Brien is having another stellar season but like most great masters of their craft, much of his success is driven by doubt and the possible fear of failure.
“It’s a massive operation and there are so many moving parts and cogs in the wheel, we’re all little cogs in that but when it’s starting to flow, you don’t want to talk or think too much about it but you just need to be there to feel it.
“I doubt myself all the time, that’s my life. You have to and everyone has to be answerable, you have to be answerable and true to yourself. Everyone has an opinion and who knows who’s right and who’s wrong,” the 54-year-old said.
“You just hope and there’s so many variables that you just can’t control, one of those can just throw you off.”
Aidan O’Brien’s Five to Watch
Auguste Rodin – “The plan is to go to Japan after the Irish Champions Stakes. He loves the fast ground and his last piece of work was excellent. We were very happy with what we saw, it was a bit different.”
Los Angeles – “We thought he was a horse that could run in the first three, four or five in a Champion Stakes and go on to the Arc, that’s what we still think. We’ll learn what type of a middle-distance horse he’s going to be.” Luxembourg – “He is a very consistent, strong horse. He’ll go forward and over a mile and a quarter [in the Champion Stakes], he doesn’t mind making the running and they’ll have to follow him because he won’t be stopping.
Ylang Ylang – “We rode her very gently the last day because we were conscious that she was just about ready to run. The next day [in the Matron Stakes] she’ll be different and we’ll ride her more positively and forward.”
Kyprios – “We’re very happy with him. Everything has gone very well with him so far, he’s in very good form so the plan is to go to the [Irish] Leger with him.”