Every so often the sport throws up a statistic that stops you in your tracks, and here is one. Across the weekend, and that includes Friday, Aidan O'Brien, the most powerful stable in the game, has had just one winner from twenty three runners in Britain and Ireland. His last twenty two have all been beaten. This is not a dig, it is simply a remarkable state of affairs for a yard of this size and quality, and it is worth talking about.
The Curragh over the weekend tells the story on its own. O'Brien saddled twenty one runners there across Saturday and Sunday and did not manage a single winner. The best he could do was a second with Victory Speech and a third with Confucius, and even those are heavily qualified. Victory Speech was placed in a six runner maiden. Confucius was the beaten favourite, sent off around 11/10 in a seven runner Group 2, the Railway Stakes, and could only finish third. When the two best results of your weekend are a place in a small maiden and a beaten favourite in a moderate field, you are a long way from firing.
The beaten favourites are the part that really catches the eye. By our reckoning four of his runners were sent off favourite and all four were turned over, and two of those went off odds-on. White Sand Beach was a 4/5 chance and finished only fourth. Ibelieveicanfly was a 1/3 shot, as short as they come, and trailed home fourth of nine. We watched the lot, and there were some genuinely moderate performances in there, with Ibelieveicanfly and Confucius in particular very disappointing.
None of this is to write the stable off. A team this strong does not stay quiet for long, and cold spells come to the very best. But the timing is what makes it worth flagging, because the King George is a week away, and O'Brien's form could hardly be worse going into it.
With doubts over whether some of his leading middle distance horses take their chance, it looks likely that Benvenuto Cellini will be left to carry much of the stable's hope at Ascot. Backing a horse out of a yard in this kind of form takes a leap of faith, and it would be no surprise at all to see the money arrive this week for the principal opposition, with Calandagan the obvious one. We are not saying Benvenuto Cellini cannot win. We are saying a stable running this cold is a genuine consideration when the biggest middle distance race of the summer comes round in seven days.
For now, file it under the bonkers stats of the season. One winner from twenty three, the best of the rest a place in a maiden, and two odds-on shots beaten. You do not see that every day from Ballydoyle, and when it happens right before a King George, it is worth paying attention to.