THERE are few things I find worth waking up at 5am for, and a trip to Ballydoyle is one of them. The thought of treading on hallowed ground was more effective than my usual Berocca, or the much-appreciated coffee offered to members of the press, as Aidan O’Brien hosted a press morning ahead of the Irish Champions Festival.

The sheer number of horses out in a single lot, all beautifully presented and well-behaved, was impressive in itself, and became mind-blowing as you looked through the names listed and realised quite how much talent surrounded you in the outdoor arena. If any of us failed to be impressed, we are in the wrong profession.

The equine talent and accomplishments attract a skilled team of riders and grooms, made even more essential by the absence of any horse walker on the premises. Perhaps it is the amount of handling that moulds these horses into the ultimate professionals presented to us on Monday morning.

Aidan O’Brien’s famed attention to detail was apparent throughout, not just by greeting each rider by name, but by how he could tell me all about the background of a particular rider I asked him about.

The smallest detail could be the key to success, it would appear, given Aidan’s answer when asked if he changed anything to uplift Ballydoyle’s fortunes from the start of the season.

“You’re tweaking all the time,” he said. “You don’t want to tweak it so much that you go out of sync; you’re just trying to make the sound a little bit clearer. But if you turn too much... It’s so sensitive, you know?

“When it’s starting to flow, you don’t want to talk too much about it, you don’t want to think too much about it, but you just need to be there to feel it.”

The next obvious question was how testing times affect him. “I doubt myself all the time. Believe me, I wish I didn’t. That’s my life. But listen, you have to because, everyone has to be answerable.

“I do my best, but I always accept it. I don’t drive myself mad, and I don’t think too much about what’s happened, because then if I do that, I’m wasting time and everything going forward is going to suffer. If you’re thinking about what happened yesterday, you’re taking away from what’s happening tomorrow.”

You can imagine that O’Brien has no time to waste, with so many proven and potential stars to train, each of them with individual needs and quirks.

This was apparent when O’Brien showed me a file on his phone which lists the daily weights of each horse, after I asked if they were weighed weekly (imagine!).

O’Brien’s generosity of time and knowledge was evident throughout the morning, including when I asked for a horse to look out for in the coming months.

After much deliberation, he selected Light As Air, a two-year-old filly by Wootton Bassett out of Fluff, making her a half-sister to Continuous. Watch this space.

Plans for the Irish Champions Festival and elsewhere

Auguste Rodin

ICF aim: Irish Champion Stakes

If he runs, I’d imagine Ryan will ride him. I suppose if the ground got soft, everything could change. We think he’s a mile-and-a-quarter horse, who gets a mile and a half, but he’s not any further than that.

His last bit of work was excellent, he showed a lot of zest in it. He went by his lead horse very easy, whereas usually he wouldn’t at that stage of the work, and he was very confident. It was a bit different.

He’s a very slick horse. He travels very well. He does everything very easy. We think he’s going to suit the race, and that the next race (in Japan) will suit him too.

(King George run) When I walked the track, the ground was soft on the inside. I just made a bad decision - I should have told the lads to stay off the rail. The King George was always going to be a strong race, and he got tracked down the rail behind the pace, and William had Ryan on his inside, and he wasn’t going to let him out there.

And so Ryan did have no choice, and he stayed there. When a horse runs a bit like that with Ryan, he takes them out of the race, because he always thinks of the next day.

Bedtime Story

ICF aim: Moyglare Stakes

We’re happy with her since the last day, and then the filly that ran at Newmarket could go for the Moyglare as well - Lake Victoria.

We didn’t want to give her (Bedtime Story) a grueller the last day. She’s a big, high-tempo filly, that’s what she is. It only kicks in at the two after a strong tempo, and it never really kicked in at all at the Curragh. But we didn’t want to do that to her before the Moyglare.

City Of Troy

(On whether the Irish Champion Stakes was ever a possibility) It was obviously always there, or thereabouts. We were waiting to let him go forward, but we only wanted to do it before the Classic. I know him the next day - he will hit the gates, he will want to go the next day.

We think what he did is going to set him up well for America. He always favoured racing aggressively. From day one, he just went out the gates and went, it’s in his nature to do it, but what’s rare about him is that he carries it through.

I’d say he’d go forward, and you’d imagine that the faster they go, the better it will suit him. But, you know, our fast is a little bit different than American fast.

(On whether his absence takes away from the Irish Champion Stakes) Every year we have to do what we think is the right thing for the horses. The Champion Stakes doesn’t apologise to anybody ever, because we’ve seen what has happened out of the Champion Stakes every year, year in, year out - the horses that come out of it; Arc winners, Breeders’ Cup winners, everything.

(On the Breeders’ Cup Classic) We’ve tried very hard a lot of times, for 25 years. It’s a very difficult race to win. You’re going to a different world, different culture, different track, different surface, everything is different. I think one of our horses has to be a lot better than the opposition to win.

It’s one of those races you don’t dream about, because it’s so difficult. But you try and hope, and every year you tweak things and look for different horses and different ways of doing it. You look under every stone that you can look under, and then hopefully you’ve looked under enough.

(On working at Southwell) He will go a mile with probably four or five other horses, and we will go a strong, fast pace for a mile and see what will happen. He will work out of American stalls, so we’ll have it as close as we can. We won’t have the surface, but that’s not a bad thing, because it’s kind of a step in between, rather than the big jump straight away.

We’ll work the fastest horses we can and we’ll go very hard the first half of the race. I don’t what’s going to happen. Any horse we’ve sent to Southwell has never worked well, they just about finished with the lead horse.

Dreamy

She’s a beautiful, big, scopey filly. We’ll try not to race her too much; one more run, probably, at the most.

There was good pace the last day, she learned plenty, they weren’t hanging around the whole way. Ryan was very happy with her, he said she really only engaged the last two when they joined her. When she got into full speed, she really opened up, especially in the last furlong.

Henri Matisse

ICF aim: National Stakes

That was always the plan for him.

Henry Longfellow

He runs at the weekend in France in the mile race, the Prix du Moulin.

(On the Sussex Stakes, where he was pestered in front) We could not believe that would happen - that’s the last thing we thought of. Listen, that’s just racing. Everyone is entitled to do whatever they want, but we just got it wrong, like we didn’t see it happening. It’s one of those variables we can’t control exactly.

Kyprios

ICF aim: Irish St Leger

We’re very happy with him. He’s done everything very well so far, he’s in very good form.

He’s a hard horse to read, because he’s very lazy, and he only does what he has to do, but he did look very good at Goodwood the last day.

He’s an unusual horse in that he’s a group horse over a mile and a quarter, and he gets that two and a half. It’s a very rare horse that does that really.

Los Angeles

ICF aim: Irish Champion Stakes

We had in our head going to York, that he’s the type of horse who could run in the first three, four or five in a Champion Stakes, and could go on to an Arc, and that’s what we still think.

If the ground gets soft in France, he’d have no problem with that.

He’s a deceiving-looking horse; he’s lazy and when he gets to the front, he doesn’t do much, so it’s just hard to assess him. But for us, we’ll learn a lot about him in this race, because there’ll be a strong even pace, and we will learn what kind of a middle-distance type horse he’s going to be.

It’s very tough race, a competitive race, but it sets a horse up for the autumn, we think.

We could go to the Leger with him, but we have three other horses (Grosvenor Square, Illinois and Jan Brueghel) that look real Leger horses, that will get the trip very well, but we didn’t think that he needs to go the trip.

Luxembourg

ICF aim: Irish Champion Stakes

Luxembourg’s a very consistent, strong horse. He’ll go forward - over a mile and a quarter, he doesn’t mind making the running and you have to follow him, because he won’t be stopping over a mile and quarter. He’s another one of those horses - he’s a kind of mile-and-a-quarter horse that just gets a mile and a half, but he’s not any further than that.

The Lion In Winter

ICF aim: National Stakes, TBC

The lads will decide about whether he’ll go or not, and if he doesn’t go there, he’d go to the Goffs Million, and he could do both.

We really thought that maybe York was going to be a bit sharp for him; you nearly need a six-furlong horse to win the Acomb, usually. But we’ve seen those really good, classy horses can get away with it.

Ylang Ylang

ICF aim: Matron Stakes

We rode her very gently the last day, because we were very conscious that she was just about ready to run. The race wasn’t fast, and it never really opened up. Ryan kind of floated her when that happened, because he was never going to get into the race, so he didn’t want to give her a hard race and set her back.

The next day, we think she’ll be different. We’ll ride her more positively and forward. She will stay further than a mile, she could go to the fillies’ race on Arc weekend after that. We’re thinking about America.

Content will train for Arc weekend, the fillies’ race (Prix de l’Opéra). She’ll probably miss the Arc trials; she’s a slight filly. Opera Singer runs in the Prix Vermeille on trials day. That will say whether she go to an Arc, and they’re all Breeders’ Cup type fillies as well.