Tiger Roll Owner Set to Leave Racing

Michael-OLeary-Owner

Tiger Roll’s fantastic Grand National win in April is still fresh in the memory, although the horse’s owner has just stunned the racing world by announcing that he will no longer being investing in racehorses.

Michael O’Leary is the owner of Ryanair and he’s previously been one of the biggest horse racing owners in the National Hunt game, although the Irishman has seemingly fallen out of love with the sport and decided to phase out his ownership over the next few years.

O’Leary’s Gigginstown House Stud operation boasts a huge number of horses, the best of whom have been recently seen at the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National meeting, including Tiger Roll who has won the past two Grand Nationals.

Tiger Roll landed the spoils at the Aintree spectacular in 2018, with Gordon Elliott saddling the same horse to victory in the National twelve months later, with the warrior horse expected to line up for a potential hat-trick attempt in 2020.

Nevertheless, O’Leary has made the decision not to buy any further young or store horses for his yard. This effectively means that while his current horses will be seen for the next few years, the numbers will gradually dwindle.

The Ryanair boss said in a statement: "We wish to sincerely thank all our trainers and their teams for the enormous success we've enjoyed over the past decade, but as my children are growing into teenagers I am spending more and more of my time at their activities and I have less and less time for National Hunt racing, a situation that will continue for the foreseeable future.

"I hope that by running down our string over an extended four- or five-year period it will give our trainers ample time to replace our horses without disruption."

O’Leary has owned some notable horses in the National Hunt game, with War of Attrition winning the 2006 Cheltenham Gold Cup working with the trainer Mouse Morris, while the further thirteen years have brought plenty of more successes.

Don Cossack was the Gold Cup winner in 2016 and it was to be the precursor to a first Grand National win in the same year, with Rule The World claiming the Aintree race.

Eddie O’Leary is the brother to Michael and is the acting racing manager of Gigginstown, with the spokesman adding further detail to the situation.

He added: "Michael's children are now growing, and their activities are leaving less and less time for racing last season and for the foreseeable future.

"We've just had our best season ever in terms of winners, and it's been an amazing year capped by Tiger Roll winning the Grand National for the second time last month.

"We have lots of young stock to be allocated among our trainers over the coming weeks, and each of our trainers will receive their usual allocation of young point-to-pointers."