Aidan O’Brien moving along?

There have been persistent rumours in the last fortnight that Aidan O’Brien may be ready to move along and make way for someone else to take over at Ballydoyle. Apparently he was upset that his son Joseph was replaced by Ryan Moore and feels the time may be right to scale down his interest, perhaps focusing more on training jumpers.

One name that was put in the frame was David O’Meara, but he quashed the rumours with a statement on Monday, stating that he has “never been approached by anyone at Coolmore.”

Emma Ramsden certainly appears to suspect something judging by her brief interview with O’Brien on Channel 4 at the weekend, when she raised the question of Joseph stopping race-riding, possibly to train jumpers, eliciting the following slightly enigmatic but still revealing response from O’Brien:

“Obviously they are training them the whole time and I am surplus to requirements at the moment. I’m only going along with it … the lads are all a big part of the team … everybody knows that Joseph is doing his best with his weight … there are plenty of horses there for everybody to train and the more people that want to train them the more I’d be happy … Joseph plays a big part in it and always has … hopefully he will keep helping us for a while … ”

Aidan has his own way of saying things but although he has had to toe the party line on many occasions, especially in relation to his racehorses and their futures as stallions, he is also very much his own man and that is how John Magnier always wanted it to be. I do, though, recall an occasion earlier in the summer when Aidan hinted that he was not as involved as he once was.

My view is that there will be changes at Ballydoyle at some point this year, probably at the end of the season. Aidan will still be as involved as he wants to be, but possibly in a joint-role.