Trainer David O’Meara denied any approach had been made to him concerning the Coolmore operation at Ballydoyle. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA
The interdependence of racing and betting means almost every snippet of gossip has some value attached. Everyone wants to feel they are ahead of the game and in a sport that is, in some respects, the country’s biggest clique, conditions are ideal for a potent racecourse rumour to multiply and spread faster than flu.
A suggestion that Aidan O’Brien’s long and immensely successful training career at the historic Ballydoyle stables in Co Tipperary might be drawing towards a close has been bubbling away for at least a week.
It received added impetus during the Ebor meeting at York, when David O’Meara’s name was attached to the rumour as the man being sounded out to replace O’Brien, who took over at Ballydoyle in 1996. But the idea stopped to a walk on Tuesday morning, when O’Meara was quoted in the Racing Post, scotching the speculation without much wriggle-room. “I have never been approached by anyone at Coolmore [the stud operation behind O’Brien’s yard] regarding Ballydoyle,” he said. “There is no substance to the rumour.”
Personal experience suggests that about eight in every 10 track rumours have little or no substance, while about one in every 10 is on the money.
The remainder lie somewhere in between, so the betting still has to be that O’Brien will continue his outstanding tenure at Ballydoyle into next season and beyond.
Every working relationship has its ups and downs, after all, and the main players in this one are driven, strong-willed men, used to doing things their way. John Magnier, whose wife, Sue, is the daughter of Vincent O’Brien, Aidan’s legendary predecessor, is the key player in the Coolmore syndicate, but his associates Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith are sharp operators, too.
What they all value above anything else is success, and Aidan O’Brien has played a vital role in Coolmore’s rise to become the most successful commercial bloodstock operation the turf has ever seen.
Magnier, certainly, understands the importance of continuity in such a significant position. When the new intake of impeccably-bred yearlings arrives at Ballydoyle every autumn, in many cases they are greeted by a man who turned their sire, dam or brothers and sisters into champions and Classic winners. A wealth of experience like that can be acquired only over time. Why would anyone let it go?
O’Brien has enjoyed such significant, consistent success in his two decades at Ballydoyle that there should be a job for him there for as long as he wants it. But does he still want it? That, perhaps, is the one lingering doubt amid the blizzard of gossip, possibly even the one that helped to feed the rumours in the first place.
It was after the victory of Gleneagles in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot that O’Brien offered a glimpse of the daily pressure behind the glamour of big-race success.
“We [O’Brien and his wife Annemarie] have done this for 20 years, hard graft day in and day out,” he said. “Maybe next year at Ascot we might be able to stay here an odd night. That’s the reality, we’re over and back every day, we never stay anywhere. Maybe shortly we might be able to start doing stuff like that, living normal lives. I’ve never seen any of the cities that we go to, I go racing and go back home.”
There was a smile on O’Brien’s face as he said it, as if he could not quite believe he was unburdening himself in public. Even with the benefit of hindsight, though, and in the context of the latest rumours, he was not demob happy. “Shortly” seemed to mean four or five years into the future, not four or five months.
Having achieved so much at such a relatively young age, it might be only natural if O’Brien were to pause and assess whether it is what he wants to do for the second half of his adult life too. Several historic achievements are now within sight – O’Brien needs one more Derby, for instance, to match Vincent O’Brien’s six, and two more to equal the all-time mark – but then, he has never seemed too concerned about breaking records.
So perhaps the stories are true, and O’Brien is about to spring a surprise and leave Ballydoyle in his mid-40s and at the height of his powers. Despite the persistent efforts of racing’s rumour-machine to usher him out, however, it does still seem rather unlikely.
