Kyprios 'sound' following Leopardstown injury worry
Aidan O'Brien has issued a positive bulletin on star stayer Kyprios following his Saval Beg Stakes victory at Leopardstown on Friday evening.
The seven-year-old claimed a third success in the Group Three contest, with the dual Gold Cup winner seemingly well on course for another trip to Royal Ascot.
However, O'Brien expressed some concern about the horse's movement leaving the winner's enclosure, saying Kyprios was "moving a little bit gingerly in front".
The son of Galileo has subsequently been checked over and was reported to be sound on Saturday morning.
O'Brien, quoted on the X account of the horse's owners Coolmore, said: "Kyprios is very good this morning and is sound.
"We think he knocked his pastern after turning sharply in the winners enclosure.
"X-rays and scans were all clean and we are very happy with him."
Kyprios has followed a familiar route to Ascot in winning last month's Vintage Crop Stakes before taking the Saval Beg – the same path he took before his Gold Cup victories in 2022 and 2024, when he also enjoyed unbeaten seasons.
O'Brien's charge is a general 11-10 favourite to win a third Gold Cup, which would put him level with Sagaro and Stradivarius and one win behind Yeats, who claimed four victories for O'Brien between 2006 and 2009.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Emotional Graham Lee on the brutal reality of his life since being paralysed
Irish jockey Graham Lee has given an emotional insight into how challenging his life now is following life-changing injuries in a racecourse fall. The 49-year-old from Galway city was a hugely successful rider, winning both the Grand National and Ascot Gold Cup, but was left paralysed from the neck down after an incident at Newcastle in 2023. Lee sustained a cervical fracture which damaged his spinal cord when he came off his horse exiting the stalls and has needed 24 hour care since. He spent many weeks in intensive care before being moved to a spinal unit and is also a regular visitor to Jack Berry House in Yorkshire, the Injured Jockeys' Fund rehab facility. Lee, who rode Amberleigh House to win the 2004 Grand National and Trip To Paris to win the Gold Cup in 2015, told the Racing Post: "Don't get me wrong, I know there are people worse off than me, but with my injury, every day is groundhog day. "Racing can be a very lonely place," he added. "As a jockey, you're permanently hungry, you're doing loads of miles and you have to deal with defeat every day. 'Racing can be tough but when you get something like what happened to me, it comes together like no other sport. I've been humbled by the support and love I've received. I've been blown away by it, to be honest." Lee revealed he is holding on to a 'glimmer of light' that could put an end to the brutal reality of his life since his horrific fall. "You think, how am I going to get through today? You see no light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how small the tunnel is, you don't see a glimmer, but then Becks (Lee's wife) found something on Facebook the other day about an operation you can have in China. "After Jack (Berry) read about it, he said, 'It looks like we're going to China, then'. I wouldn't think it will happen but it's a glimmer of light, a little bit of hope." Funds are also being raised for the ex-jockey through The Graham Lee Racing Club whose horse We've Got This won for the first time at Redcar on Friday. Lee rode almost 2,000 winners in a career that saw him transfer from the jumps to the flat but overcame many challenges in the early part of his journey as a jockey. "I was a very moderate rider who was told, 'You can't and you won't,' but yet I did," says Lee. "I had lots of broken bones and plenty of head injuries along the way but my body always overcame the obstacles. It always healed. This ain't healing. "That makes me angry at my body, which is probably very unfair because my body is okay, it's just the spinal cord that is broken. I'm angry because in the past my body collapsed but then came back. At the minute, there is no coming back. "When you're a jockey, you always dream of getting on that one horse who will take you to the next level. My situation is the same. I'm hoping and I'm dreaming. That's what keeps us going. I'm just hoping that somewhere, some day, there will be that glimmer of light." "I am the luckiest man in the world to have the most amazing wife," he said. "Excuse my language but she is my f***ing rock. In Amy and Robbie, I've got two amazing children who are happy, healthy and make me feel incredibly proud and fortunate. Yes, I have to get Becks to scratch my nose or itch my ear, and I probably do her head in, but I'm so lucky to have her." "I was lucky to have a very good career but, at the end of the day, it means nothing," said Lee. "People say to me, 'Wow, you won the Grand National, you won the Gold Cup.' So what? It means nothing. "I would give up every winner I ever rode to walk out of this room. If the TV was switched on and I saw Amberleigh House winning the Grand National or Trip To Paris winning the Gold Cup, it would be like watching a totally different person, even though I know it was me. "I'll be forever thankful for what racing has given us as a family, but at the minute I can't forgive racing for what it has taken away from me. Maybe that's because it's still raw."
RTÉ News
16 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Two into one won't go but Liam O'Brien eyeing 2026 Winter Olympics spot
Australia may be one of the world's sporting strongholds but, similarly to Ireland, it wouldn't fall under the category of winter powerhouse (although their 19 medals are not to be sniffed at!). And yet next February, a Sydney-born short track speed skater is hoping to represent Team Ireland at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina - and if he were to qualify, he wouldn't be the first member of his family to compete at a Winter Games. The athlete in question is Liam O'Brien, whose connections to this island flow through both sides of his family, with his mother hailing from Kingscourt, Co. Cavan before she relocated Down Under in her 20s on a working holiday visa and met his father whose roots are in Meath and Leitrim respectively. As a child growing up in sports-mad and outdoorsy Australia, a young O'Brien dabbled with playing GAA in the Michael Cusacks club in Sydney. But in those days it was soccer and especially cricket that took precedence. "I played a lot of cricket and my pop wanted to get me into hurling but just didn't happen," the 26-year-old says at the Sport Ireland Campus during a recent visit as the road towards next year's Olympics ramps up. A love for cricket makes perfect sense from an Aussie perspective but how in the world did skating slip into his bloodstream? That's where the influence of his sister Danielle, who is eight-and-a-half years his senior, comes into the picture. "She went to a birthday party at an ice rink and just loved skating and kept hassling mum wanting to go back," O'Brien explains. "She went into ice dance and when I was born, I was just born into an ice rink, so I started skating at the age of three - figure skating - and then slowly moved into speed skating." Ice dance wasn't a mere hobby for Danielle and in 2014, she represented Australia at that year's Winter Olympics in Sochi. The entire family travelled to southern Russia to support her and the experience opened doors in her younger brother's imagination. "After watching her compete at the Olympics, it really drove me to want to become an Olympic athlete as well," he explains. "It was only after that that I'd seen really the goal and that target there in short track speed skating and really went for it then. That's when I gave up cricket and soccer as well." Unlike his sister, O'Brien is representing Ireland and that came following a chance meeting between his father and Ice Skating Association of Ireland chief executive Karen O'Sullivan in 2012. "We've kept contact ever since and when the opportunity came up to switch across to Ireland, I took that chance and Danielle and Mum and Dad were all very supportive and well, they loved it." Turbo-charging his pursuit of getting to the highest level in short track speed skating also meant moving away from Australia, with the aim of trying to qualify for Beijing 2022. Which is how he ended up relocating to Seongnam, South Korea in 2019 and enrolling at Dankook University. The country has produced the most Olympic gold medalists in short track ahead of China and Canada, making it a natural hub for anyone wanting to hone their craft. But his time there coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions that came with it, although apart from the difficulty of obtaining masks, he enjoyed the experience and the tougher challenge was learning Korean. "When Covid hit, there were no visas and so my only way to secure a visa was through study and I decided to learn Korean," O'Brien recalls. "That course was taught purely in Korean, and I hadn't actually learned the language up until that stage and I was given 24 hours before I had to do my first exam. I knew how to sound things out, but I didn't know how to write them, so I spent 24 hours learning the alphabet and how to put them all together because it's different symbols where it forms one character. So that was an interesting afternoon." O'Brien quickly became fluent, however the dream of representing Ireland in Beijing would be dashed when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament nine weeks before the qualifiers and although he got back on the ice far quicker than anticipated he would miss the Olympics by the narrowest of margins. "That was a big setback there," he admits. "I tried to keep myself entertained and not think about it at first. I was given 12 weeks of no sport whatsoever, no walking, nothing. "However, I was back on the ice within four weeks. And that was after being in a brace with my knee and not able to walk. And I was unlucky. I missed out by one spot in the end. So there were 36 qualified for the 1500m and we placed 37th." Fast forward to the present and O'Brien is still dreaming of a Games and to further that goal he has followed his Korean coach across to the Chinese city of Tianjin, just outside Beijing, in the last few weeks. "Bit of a move," he jokes. "The coach there is a Korean coach, Kwang-Soo Lee," he adds, "He's coached many junior athletes up into elite athletes there and into the national team. So I followed him across and I was with him before the Beijing Olympics as well. And actually, before I hurt my knee there he had just gone off to China that time." While O'Brien feels he is tracking well towards qualification for Milano-Cortina, two into one doesn't go. That's because Ireland will only have one quota spot in short track speed skating at the Games and Canadian-born Sean McAnuff, who was also in attendance at the Sport Ireland Campus late last month, is also vying for that single spot. "The first time I met Sean was probably when I was actually representing Australia," says O'Brien. "He was there at the 2018 Winter Olympics, the qualifications, and I was representing Australia at that time and we met there and since then now skating together for Ireland. "Sean is based out of Hungary and unfortunately, we don't get to train together, but it's hard as well when you don't have a relay team, you don't have that same, I guess, companionship." And even though they do not favour the same distances - O'Brien is more into the 1500m whereas McAnuff leans more towards the 500m and 1500m - it will still come down to one spot for Ireland if either meet the qualification criteria. "We're both different distances. He likes the shorter distances, where I prefer the longer distances, which makes it hard, where if we both qualify in our respective distance, there's still only the one spot, so it makes it hard in that sense however." The final qualification staging points will come in October and November but given how intrepid O'Brien has been in his short track pursuit to date, no one will be counting him out of being at the start line in Italy next February.
Irish Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Aidan O'Brien's true colours clear as Royal Ascot jockey speaks out on trainer
Royal Ascot jockey Sean Levey has opened up about Aidan O'Brien, admitting that the Irish trainer is just as kind and diligent as one would expect behind the scenes. Having taken the National Hunt game by the horns, O'Brien was asked by Fermoy-born business magnate John Magnier to train at Ballydoyle, and the rest is history. The 55-year-old has won essentially all there is to win on the flat and has established himself as an impervious all-time great. O'Brien's record at the Royal meeting is as jaw-dropping as expected, and a battalion is sent over to Berkshire year-on-year in a bid for Group 1 glory. Aboard the majority of these charges is Ballydoyle's retained jockey Ryan Moore; however, such a large operation often sees rides crop up. Levey, who moved to Ireland as a teenager, began riding out for O'Brien in his youth. He was an apprentice under the trainer before heading to England and taking up a role at Richard Hannon's stable. The 37-year-old has produced winners for O'Brien on many occasions, though, most notably guiding Galileo colt Jan Brueghel to the St. Leger in 2024. Therefore, Levey is well-acquainted with the icon and has revealed that his industrious work is reflected in his honourable character. "I was an apprentice there [at Ballydoyle] for a few years before I moved here [to England]. It had a massive impact," said Ladbrokes ambassador Levey. "Because I obviously served an apprenticeship under him for a good few years. So it was… My initial standpoint was under Aidan, so you'd imagine he had a massive influence on a lot of the things I do now. He's a very, very kind man. The kind of man who does right by everyone. "He's also very meticulous. I think his love for the sport kind of shines through in how he presented himself and how he's navigated training a multitude of very, very good horses. I mean, his record kind of speaks for itself, and there's not much I can really add to his CV!" Over the course of a glittering career, it is not only the Ballydoyle dynasty that Levey has had the privilege of riding for, but the royal blue of the Maktoum family's stable, Godolphin. The globe-trotting stable was founded in 1992, and enlists the help of a handful of British trainers, namely Charlie Appleby and Saeed bin Suroor, to front their operation out of HQ. Levey has ridden in the iconic silks on occasion and believes both Ballydoyle and Godolphin's experience and rigorousness have allowed them to remain at the top for so long. "I think I've only ever picked up rides for Saeed [bin Suroor]. Been placed in a couple of listed races, and I've won a couple of listed races. I also rode a listed winner for Richard [Hannon] with a two-year-old that he had trained for Godolphin, so I've had the privilege of wearing the blue colours, and having winners in them," added Levey. "They're a firm that have their team. I've just been lucky on occasion that the opportunity sort of presented itself, and I was put forward. They're a very good team with very good soldiers to boot. Their record kind of speaks for itself. "Godolphin are... I think they've both been in the game a long, long time. They've been breeding very good horses for a long time, and they don't leave any stone unturned, the same as Aidan doesn't leave any stone unturned, and as a result, they're extremely competitive at the top level."
