Constitution River backed to put ‘complete mess’ of York behind him at Leopardstown

The Wootton Bassett colt had been faultless in winning the Dee Stakes at Chester, the French Derby and the Coral-Eclipse, teeing him up for a highly-anticipated clash with defending champion Ombudsman in York’s Group One feature.

But both big guns were upstaged on the Knavesmire, with Constitution River third and John and Thady Gosden’s Ombudsman fourth behind Andrew Balding’s Item.

O’Brien blames himself for his star three-year-old’s defeat after his planned pacemaker Action fluffed the start and was never able to get involved, leaving both Constitution River and his other stablemate, Hawk Mountain, exposed on the front end.

“It was just a bit of a mess really the last day, everything that could go wrong went wrong,” the trainer explained during an Irish Champions Festival press morning at Ballydoyle on Monday.

“I have to ultimately accept the responsibility for it because I put in the pacemaker that wasn’t good enough. We thought if he wouldn’t go the other horse of John’s (Devil’s Advocate) would go, but obviously they didn’t have any intention of going.

“It just goes to show with one bad decision what can happen. Because of that the whole race changed and Constitution River ended up a bit too forward because there wasn’t enough pace in front of him and he was in a gear too high – it was all just a complete mess really.”

O’Brien will be doing everything in his power to avoid a repeat, even raising the possibility of supplementing a more suitable pacemaker should he feel the need to do so.

He added: “Constitution River is in good form, he seems to have come out of the race (at York) well.

“We always thought the world of this horse, his only blip was the last day and I would be very confident it wasn’t his fault. We’re hoping he’ll leave that run behind him and we’re very happy with him since.

“We’d like to have something else that could make it for them so Hawk Mountain wouldn’t have to be as forward.

“Hopefully we’ll have something that might be able to go in there. We have horses that are not it but we could have to supplement. Hopefully we won’t make the same mistake twice.”