Eight top-level wins in a season that isn't as bad as portrayed for O'Brien

As has been well documented in recent weeks Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle team has been affected to varying degrees by a bug that swept through all of the yards at the world-famous training establishment.

Although O'Brien's haul of top-level wins is down on recent years, it is worth mentioning he has won eight Group or Grade 1 races this season and with eight different horses – Saxon Warrior, Forever Together, Merchant Navy, US Navy Flag, Rhododendron, Athena, Kew Gardens and Lancaster Bomber.

By any standards that is an impressive achievement and if anything the drop in the number of Group 1 victories by Ballydoyle inmates simply highlights the fact that O'Brien is in many ways a victim of his own success, which in previous seasons often took his haul of Group 1s well into double figures by this time of year.