‘The most incredible horse – an incredible brain with incredible ability’: top performer who defied the odds is retired

Multiple Group One-winning racehorse Kyprios has been retired. The decision was made owing to an aggravation of an old ringbone lesion, which he picked up winning the Saval Beg Stakes at Leopardstown for a third time this month.

The seven-year-old won 17 of his 21 starts, including two Gold Cups at Royal Ascot, in 2022 and 2024, becoming the third horse in history to regain victory in this race. The 2024 victory was all the more impressive given that Kyprios, trained by Aidan O’Brien and owned by Moyglare, Magnier, Tabor, Smith and Westerberg, suffered an almost career-ending injury early in 2023 in the form of a serious fetlock joint infection.

“He was a great horse. The class he had and his stamina,” said Mr O’Brien. “He had to be incredibly sound to come back from what he did. I don’t think any other horse would have come back from where he came back from.

“Obviously, we had to be ultra-respectful of him. Always. When he was a little bit sore after his run at Leopardstown, we were never going to take any risks with him. Everybody felt the same way.”

Kyprios won eight of his nine Group One starts and has won his last nine races, winning £2,690,414 during his career, which started in September 2020.

Mr O’Brien picked out the Prix du Cadran of 2022, which Kyprios won by 20 lengths despite hanging violently to his left inside the final furlong, as one of his highlights.

“He won by a long way. He was just galloping home really,” said Mr O’Brien. “He’d been round once, he could see where he needed to go and he just wanted to get back. He was just always in second gear most of the time.

“That was just unusual, that Prix du Cadran, they all fell away, nothing could go with him and he got left in front and got a bit lonely.

“He’s been the most incredible horse, he had an incredible mind to go with his incredible ability.”

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