Our man on his visit to Ballydoyle

Sky Bet Ebor Festival preview: David Ord in Ireland

By David Ord

Horse Racing

Thu August 14, 2025 · 4M ago

Our wounded correspondent visits Joseph and Aidan O'Brien on the road to the Sky Bet Ebor Festival.

Father and Son.

Cat Stevens 1970.

There’s a music quiz coming up at York during Ebor week so I’m in full revision mode. But it’s also the story of day one of the visit to Ireland.

Well Son and Father to be completely accurate.

I pull back the curtains in my room at the Horse And Jockey Hotel in Thurles and google broken collar bone for the third time in a week. It’s an injury I’m still not convinced I didn’t suffer when slipping over on a slope on Selsey beach hours after surviving the monsoon of ‘that Thursday’ at Goodwood. The irony in that.

Like a giant, rotund, bearded turtle I lay on my back, unable to get up for several minutes. Only the sight of my embarrassed family disappearing into the horizon finally gave me the strength and energy to regain my feet.

Ever since then I’ve had a sore shoulder, as you’d expect. Google has failed to provide answers. The doctor might. But she’ll have to wait.

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Joseph O’Brien won’t. Well can’t. We have a tight window to get to his picturesque corner of County Kilkenny.

Between ten and eleven is our opening. In the end, despite almost having to suffer the indignity of asking a travelling companion to stick the sock onto my right foot for me, we make it in good time.

It’s warm in Ireland, very warm, as hot as it gets in these parts I’m told.

Even so, Joseph clearly isn’t taking any chances. He’s still wearing a gilet, albeit one that is only fastened for the bottom third. It will at the very least allow some air to circulate.

It’s a small-but-select team he has heading for the Knavesmire and includes Mr Percy who won the ‘Road To’ race for the Sky Bet Ebor at the Curragh. He’ll get in even if he isn’t in the top 20 in terms of allotted weights when the curtains come down at 10am on Thursday week.

It might be a little more nervy regarding Aeronautic but Joseph in his quiet tones is enthusiastic about him – and because he is, so are we.

Rule number one of trip to Ireland club is you come back having had four or five York bets. Here’s the first one.

There’s a really nice interview heading to social channels near you soon when JOB reflects on his tussles with Frankel aboard St Nicholas Abbey in the Juddmonte International and Excelebration in a long list of top mile races.

“They were exceptional horses in their own right, but he just seemed to be breathing a different air,” he reflected.

A great quote – bettered only by “exactly what is your job here today, Oli?” to the Opening Show anchor as he leaned against a wall, applying layers of Vaseline to his lips. Bell not O’Brien. And Bell had no answer.

He had a job to do at Ballydoyle though as Aidan O’Brien was the next port of call. En-route we’re sent a sheet of his potential main runners for next week from the Racing Office.

ACOMB STKS (7f 2yo G3)

NEOLITHIC - Possible Gimcrack

ITALY

GREAT VOLTIGEUR (1m 3f 188y 3yoCG G2)

LAMBOURN

PUPPET MASTER

SHACKLETON – Possible Lonsdale Cup

STAY TRUE

JUDDDMONTE INTERNATIONAL 1m 2f 56y 3yo+ G1)

DELACROIX

YORK / Thursday

YORKSHIRE OAKS (1m 3f 188y 3yoF+ G1)

MINNIE HAUK

YORK / Friday

LONSDALE CUP (2m 56y 3yo+ G2)

SHACKLETON- Possible for Voltigeur

GIMCRACKE (6f 2yo G2)

NEOLITHIC Possible Acomb

YORK / Saturday

CITY OF YORK (7f 3yo+ G1)

EXACTLY

EBOR (1m 5f 188y 3yo+ H’Cap)

LONDON CITY

QUEENSTOWN

JULIA GRAVES ROSES (5f 2yo Lstd)

MISSION CENTRAL

The barrier at the most famous training yard in Europe raises and you’re on the move, the sense of awe as strong as the first day you were lucky enough to visit here.

We park near a statue of Giant’s Causeway. Aidan quickly follows. He’s not in a loose-fitting gilet, no he’s sporting a blue shirt, blue trousers and sunglasses which he returns to his car to replace with normal ones for the interview.

And as he speaks to Oli about all the above you realise how much heavy lifting he’s doing for us again next week. Two dual Classic winners and the Coral-Eclipse hero lead the charge.

Delacroix nabs Ombudsman to win the Coral-Eclipse

And it’s Delacroix I want to talk to him about. That Eclipse, that acceleration. I get the chance.

Did you learn anything new about Delacroix at Sandown, I open with. Realising it’s not an open question soon afterwards. This man isn’t going to say yes or no though.

“Really what he did there he shouldn’t have been able to do. He ended up in an impossible position, Ryan tried to get out a good few times, even tried to get Christophe to let him out and he didn’t,” he recalls.

“So, he had to let them all go, come back and go again, all that after the two furlong marker. For a horse to do that, I’ve never seen that happen in a race as classy as the Eclipse. I think that’s what's making everyone so excited about seeing him again.

“Did this really happen. Can it happen again?”

Does that performance change things tactically, do you play him for that turn of foot next time?

“No, he’s happy to go forward, he’s always happy to make the running. If he ends up making the running at York, I don’t think Ryan will worry about that. If he ends up trapped in, I don’t think he’ll worry about that either.

“Obviously York is not as complicated as Sandown. Usually at York your run will come. It’s a big, open track and it doesn’t get crowded. It’s usually more straightforward than Sandown is.”

How exciting is it to be taking a horse with such a striking turn of foot, in against a rival in Ombudsman who possesses exactly the same quality and does that give you headaches?

“No it doesn’t and it’s very exciting for us as well. Everyone will be watching to see what happens. Obviously, there can only be one winner but it will be exciting for everybody and that’s what makes the big races special, what the owners look forward to seeing,” Aidan says.

“I know our lads are delighted to be going this way. They want to see the good races and our horses competing in them and seeing what happens rather than making it all one-sided. That makes it exciting for us and everyone else.”

There was a real sense of you enjoying the win in the Coral-Eclipse. Despite all the success you’ve had around the world, does a race like that still get the heart pumping?

“It was one of those shocking moments. He was in a position where he could not win and the race was over, it had gone in front of him. Then he came out and he got organised and quickened up the hill," he smiles.

“I think the fractions he did against the hill have probably never been seen before. It was very unusual and for us it was great to be there and to see it. Because even after seeing it you have to go back and look at it on the video, then you have to look at it again, and again.

“The ground he made up that day was so unusual.”

And I watch it again. And I bet John and Thady Gosden have watched it again, and again, and again.

And the glorious truth is no-one knows right now what will happen in the final two furlongs of the Juddmonte International when Delacroix and Ombudsman reach for overdrive again. But we all want to find out.

I return to the car. Aidan it seems is very sweet on London City in the Sky Bet Ebor. A cause for concern or tour bet number two?

Lambourn completes the Derby double

I decide to leave that dilemma for later. Lambourn is having a pick of grass in front of us, edging ever closer to make it very clear we’re guests on his home turf.

We move back. He chews away.

Two feet away from a dual Derby winner in glorious summer sunshine in Ballydoyle.

The shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore.

On Wednesday we’re bound for Closutton and the kingdom of another training genius who is busily reimagining the possible.

Hipop De Loire is 7/2 favourite for Sky Bet Ebor. Surely, I won’t get talked into including him on the staking plan too…