Aidan O’Brien loses best chance of winning Breeders Cup in Keeneland as Blackbeard retires

Aidan O’Brien has lost perhaps his best chance of a winner at next week’s Breeders Cup in Keeneland after top two-year-old star Blackbeard was retired on Monday.

The Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes winner goes straight to stud after picking up an injury. He had been a general 3-1 favourite for the Juvenile Sprint on turf at US racing’s showpiece event next week.

“Blackbeard was a little off after exercise this morning in preparation for the Breeders Cup. Unfortunately, when we had him X-rayed the radiographs showed a small chip on his right knee and a decision has been made to retire him.

“He’s a typical No Nay Never; strong, early-maturing and very fast. He ran every month from April to September and improved and improved from one race to the next,” O’Brien said.

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Blackbeard was also notable for his unusual pre-race antics, ducking and stomping on the ground, although jockey Ryan Moore said: “He was tough as nails and the ultimate professional who improved throughout the season and had a lethal turn of foot.”

Despite Blackbeard’s absence, the Ballydoyle team could still have up to 10 runners at the Breeders Cup, which starts next Friday.

Keeneland, which hosts the meeting for a third time, has proved a happy hunting ground for O’Brien and Moore in the past

In 2015, they scored a memorable victory in the mile and a half Turf event when Found got the better of her old rival Golden Horn. That year also saw Hit It A Bomb land the Juvenile Turf event.

Two years ago, O’Brien’s Order Of Australia recorded one of the great shocks in Breeders Cup history with a 73-1 victory in the Mile.

That brought the trainer’s overall Breeders Cup tally to 13 winners. In the 25 years since he was first represented at the meeting, O’Brien has had 162 Breeders Cup starters and secured almost $27.5 million (€27.8 million) in prizemoney.

Order Of Australia is being targeted at another crack on the Mile while Broome, runner-up to Yibir in the Turf at Del Mar last year, could be joined by Stone Age in another tilt at a race their trainer has won half a dozen times in all.

O’Brien said: “Stone Age and Broome are possible for the Turf. We have Order Of Australia for the Mile. Tuesday and Toy are possible for the Fillies & Mares.

“Cairo and Victory Road maybe for the Juvenile Turf and Never Ending Story and Mediate are possible for the Fillies Turf.”

Other potential Irish-trained starters in Keeneland include Joseph O’Brien’s Above The Curve in the Filly & Mare as well as Romantic Proposal in the Sprint on grass.

There was sad news for O’Brien and Coolmore Stud on Monday with confirmation of the death of the 2002 world champion miler, Rock Of Gibraltar, due to heart failure.

Winner of seven consecutive Group One races, including both the English and Irish 2,000 Guineas, the 23-year-old Rock Of Gibraltar was among the very best horses produced by O’Brien in the last 25 years.

The son of Danehill also reached a wider sporting audience on the back of a dispute between Coolmore and Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson in whose colours Rock Of Gibraltar ran for much of his career.

Ferguson believed he owned half of the horse, including stallion rights worth an estimated $60 million, something Coolmore disputed.

It ended up in the High Court in Dublin but at the same time Coolmore supremo, John Magnier, along with JP McManus, increased their shareholding in Manchester Utd.

Their 28.7 per cent shareholding in the club was sold to the Glazer family in 2005, effectively beginning the Glazer’s controversial regime at Old Trafford.

Ferguson’s dispute with Coolmore was eventually settled out of court and the Scot subsequently argued his focus on team affairs at United during that time wasn’t affected by the long-running saga.

“Rock Of Gibraltar was a wonderful horse. He became the first in the northern hemisphere to win seven consecutive Group One races, beating Mill Reef’s record,” Ferguson wrote in his 2013 autobiography.

“He ran in my colours under an agreement I had with the Coolmore racing operation in Ireland. My understanding was that I had a half-share in the ownership of the horse; theirs was that I would be entitled to half the prizemoney.

“But it was resolved. The matter was closed when we reached a settlement agreeing that there had been a misunderstanding on both sides,” he said.

One man left famously unimpressed was the former United captain Roy Keane, who later recalled approaching his then manager.

“Somebody I met in Ireland had told me to tell him, ‘You are not going to win this’. I mentioned it to him,” Keane recalled in one of his own autobiographies.

“I told him that I didn’t think it was good for the club, for the manager in a legal dispute with shareholders.

“I felt I was entitled to say that. He was just a mascot for them. Waling around with this Rock Of Gibraltar – ‘look at me, how big I am’ – and he didn’t even own the bloody thing!” he wrote.

Rock Of Gibraltar subsequently enjoyed a successful stallion career, siring top-class winners such as Mount Nelson and Society Rock.