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Hopefully his excuses get better
Derby 2025
Interviewer “Aidan no luck in the derby today ”
Aidan ” Sure , he,s only **** twice today , he normally shits 3 times before this time , the extra weight he was carrying made the difference ”
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Flopping on dirt isn’t as bad as risking coming a soundly beaten 2nd or 3rd, for example, in a back end European G1 on turf.
At least with dirt the big book of possible excuses is bigger and slightly less well thumbed.
They can still pretend he is their best eva eva and maintain that he is the best in Europe. Which he may or may not be, but they won’t risk finding out, in case he’s not.….let’s not mention Newmarket either , can’t wait to see the stallion brochure … I’m sure neither that or tonight will be mentioned …
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
At this stage, I think it is more about ticking off the boxes of the outstanding big races they haven’t won yet, this race along with the Melbourne Cup and the Triple Crown being the most notable ones missing from the Coolmore CV.
Err looking at the recent events in Melbourne I reckon any European horses can forget about that …
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Photos in this article tell the story. He’s getting showered with the stuff and hates it. He’s actually got his eyes shut in the second photo.
….so he’s a coward as well , knock another 50k off his standing fee …
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
In fairness I’d hate that too. I would think one prep on dirt would probably be the worst thing you could do as a turf horse would probably think, if this is dirt you can shove it where the sun don’t shine, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…nope.
Whereas a dirt only horse doesn’t know any different. To convert them you’d probably have to take a turf horse out there at the start of the season and say sorry this is how life is now, like it or lump it. A dirt bred bare knuckle fighter like Giants Causeway would be better than a posh ballerina.
I think I remember a few years ago AOB having a dirt bred horse they specifically trained for dirt races – began with “M”. Think it won a good 2 year old dirt race and was then trained for the Kentucky Derby. Didn’t do any good though. Maybe they should do that route again with a colt by Justify?
City Of Troy had a beautiful, pointy toe, “top-of-the-ground”, turf action. Not a “dirt stride”.
However, when Coolmore have the Breeders Cup Classic winner anyway – trained in America – maybe AOB should give up the idea of winning the Classic?
Value Is EverythingSpot on Green the horse should know no better than dirt as being bred for the dirt isn’t good enough.
The more I know the less I understand.
But is he bred for dirt?
Justify won the Triple Crown but all his best performers so far have been Turf horses. His record as a dirt sire is poor. And the dam side of City Of Troy’s pedigree is all Turf.
Justify is a fairly new sire, so maybe it is unfair to write him off as a dirt sire so soon. However, the idea City Of Troy is “bred for the dirt” is not true, as he very clearly showed with his dismal effort.
The horse never went a yard on the surface. I expect O’Brien knows that and is coming out with excuses to save face.
I don’t know how anybody thought he could win; he’s never shown anything to suggest he could. Break well, lots of early speed for a handy position, and a finishing kick. That’s just not him….
He’s a good, probably very good horse, but he’s a grinder rather than anything brilliant.
Breeders will tell you that the dam side is the biggest influence and he is turf bred on that side, their thinking that was oh he is by a Triple Crown winner so he should go on dirt was to say the least a flawed and misguided thinking to start with.
His action all day long screams he wants fast ground on turf and not dirt and I believe it was Rachel Candelora on RTV that stated that you need a ground grabbing action to operate on dirt and not a flowing with little knee bend action that COT has as that won’t give you any purchase on dirt and will have you floundering.
Outside of sprinters, European 7f plus horses are not trained to blast out of the stalls and show early pace to get a handy position so for Aidan to state “I just didn’t have him prepared to come out of the stalls quickly enough. We thought he was quick but he got left three or four lengths and it gave Ryan and the horse no chance” is quite frankly an embarrasing excuse to make.
That was the one thing above all else that he clearly needed to be able to do (even more so when you get an inside draw) and he should of kept repeating the starting process over and over until he was taking a length or two off other horses when the stalls opened…..a fast starter in Europe is probably only equal to an average starter in the US.
Hindsight is a great thing but maybe they should have targetted the Japan Cup with him as that is often run on quick ground and is a big open galloping track and would have suited him much better.
“He wasn’t good enough” was all they had to admit , then congratulate the winner and come home …
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Listen. I did not give him enough practice at breaking quickly. The defeat is all down to me.
Tanks to all my staff who came over, the pilots on the plane and the air hostesses, the barman and the waiters in the restaurant, my optician for the dark glasses and uncle Tom Cobley
The lads won the race anyways of course.
This boys foals are something to look forward to.
Sorry AOB your interviews are seriously cringeworthy
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