It is six years since Aidan O’Brien last achieved the significant feat of winning the British trainers’ championship from his Ballydoyle stable in County Tipperary and his ninth-place finish in the table last season was his poorest showing for many years. He shows every sign of making a serious run at a seventh title in 2023, however, and Paddington, a colt who started the season in handicaps, could yet prove to be O’Brien’s trump card among a strong team of three-year-old colts.
Paddington was, in hindsight, one of the bets of the century off a mark of 97 at Naas in late March, and he extended his unbeaten campaign this season to five races with a battling success in the Eclipse Stakes his third Group One win in a row.
