Murtagh at Ballydoyle

Cantoris said:
Should they not be asking O'Brien how good the horses are rather than Murtagh? He can only tell them once he's ridden them and advise on which way they can go. Maybe Fallon was as good a workrider as he is a jockey, but not all jocks are good workriders. But the overall responsibility falls on O'Brien to gather the info from his workriders and jocks on track and prepare a roadmap for each horse.

Is it possible that their new style of training, focusing on the full year, means that some of their horses are improving considerably from run to run and O'Brien is struggling to figure it out. When they are all fit in May, it's much easier to gauge ability. Now he seems to have them fit at different times. You can hardly blame Murtagh for that and if he gets fired for that, O'Brien will go soon after him.
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Obviously some jockeys are better judges than others. Coolmore need a jockey who is as good a work rider as a race rider.Not easily found ! Aidan can judge a fair bit from his jeep but he needs the man on board to fill in the blanks.The placing of some of the horses has been just plain wrong over the last couple of Seasons for what ever reason....

I would agree that the horses have been much slower to come to hand this year and I know much of it is by design but I'm not sure it was entirely planned this year. It was a very harsh winter and I felt at the start of the Season that they had in general wintered badly. I'm not sure a crop ever really gets over that enough to catch up to be honest although CB has shown his class now.

Personally I can't see them dropping Murtagh.
 
Rip was a good example last season but Murtagh certainly couldn't be blamed for that, and was irate at the end of the Breeders Cup saying the horse is a miler and nothing else - maybe they don't take his views on board enough?
 
krizon said:
But if you're a dual-purpose trainer (as many are), Cantoris, you don't struggle to figure how to get your (very different) horses fit at different times.
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Kri, the point I was trying to make is that he runs three horses in the same race on 1 April, then on 1 June and then on 1 August and a different horse could be winning each time as they progress through different fitness cycles. It is up to O'Brien to be able to advise his jock which one is the best of the three at any given time. Most other trainers don't ave three in a race as regularly as O'Brien does, so the stable jock doesn't have to make a choice. When he does, he must rely on his trainer and any recent work he has done on the three horses himself.

As for O'Brien's intense attention to detail, I don't see it as a failing in any way. In fact I applaud his commitment. I wouldn't want to be his dog when he has a bad day at the office, but he is CEO of a business where failure is not accepted by the Chairman and shareholders. I'm sure he leaves lads to do their own thing and puts a lot of faith in Pat Keating and his riders, but at the end of the day, if sales targets (i.e. races won) are not achieved the buck stops at him. If a new product launch goes wrong, the buck stops at him. It's not just a business for him as a trainer, but for his owner. And you can see the O'Brien training in Colm Murphy. The intense attention to detail, from the gallops to the saddling box.
 
When this rumour mill was in full flow before Murtagh's appointment, Soumillon was backed into fav at one point I seem to recall.

They should have pounced on Lemaire before the Aga Khan grabbed him (which in my book is the only job in Europe to rival Ballydoyle but I'd still have Ballydoyle ahead).

Genuinely think they'll stick with Murtagh until Queally, Buick or someone similar is ready to jump ship.
 
Gamla Stan said:
When this rumour mill was in full flow before Murtagh's appointment, Soumillon was backed into fav at one point I seem to recall.

They should have pounced on Lemaire before the Aga Khan grabbed him (which in my book is the only job in Europe to rival Ballydoyle but I'd still have Ballydoyle ahead).

Genuinely think they'll stick with Murtagh until Queally, Buick or someone similar is ready to jump ship.
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Queally :blink:
 
Had it confirmed that Ryan Moore visited Ballydoyle/Coolmore during his spell out of action....What that means is anyones guess.
 
Daryll Holland was once odds on for the Ballydoyle job which suggests to me that no one knows anything.
 
I had an interesting chat with someone I trust at the races in Navan yest and he was of the view that the current Ballydoyle relationship is over and there are a lot of reasons for it. I still think it would be a real pity to lose Murtagh. I wonder where he would go? Freelance is hardly a great option. Back to Oxx??
 
Cantoris said:
I wonder where he would go? Freelance is hardly a great option. Back to Oxx??
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Anyone is better than Berry who has to be the luckiest man alive to have that job given his penchant for cock ups but to be fair, he hasn't really had chance to prove himself in the Oxx job this year.
 
Murtagh just isn't in the zone at the moment-for the last few years he tended to be in the right place at the right time -not this year.I get the impression his confidence has taken a serious knock.
 
Ballydoyle job is not an easy one.

With Dettori on godolphin, McEvoy in Australia, Buick with Gosden, Moore with Stoute , Queally with Cecil and no french options, it is very very risky to lose Murtagh for them.


The year hs not been so bad, especially with Darley stallions doing so well they have won many gr1s.
Lilly Langtry (2), Fame (2), Rip van, Zoffany, Cape Blanco (2), Misty For Me, Starspangled (2)

What has happened with Jan Vermer and St Nicholas is not Johnys fault.
 
Unless you happen to be party to any of the negotiations, it's only guesswork as to who is unhappy with whom... Could be JM is asking for a higher retainer, could be Ballydoyle aren't willing to pay a retainer or the terms of the retainer have altered significantly, could be some torrid affair going on with AOB and JM and they've fallen out.... who knows? :cool:
 
I'd say the most likely explanation is that AOB is so hands on, so meticulous and so obsessive that many people would find him difficult to work with.

I still think that sooner or later he will part from Coolmore himself and build up a legacy for young Joseph and the others.
 
It's one thing giving his son rides he doesn't deserve but there's no way he will be training at Ballydoyle anytime in the next 10 years..
 
FAG looked to lose his action there rather than poor ride from Murtagh (wouldn't have won if that hadn't happend though).
 
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