Jockey Ryan Moore ruled out of big autumn meetings with leg fracture

Ryan Moore may miss the rest of the Flat season with a stress fracture to a femur. He was booked to ride at the Curragh on Saturday, but was taken off all his mounts by midday.

Moore is retained jockey for Aidan O’Brien’s powerful Ballydoyle yard, with the Coolmore operation now facing the prospect of being without one of the world’s best jockeys for the business end of the campaign, with countless big races on the horizon.

O’Brien said: “Ryan is good, he was having plenty of trouble with his right leg since Irish Derby weekend. They were doing everything to it to try to get it right, but they couldn’t get it right so he went for scans and an X-ray on it yesterday. He has a fracture in his femur.

“Since the Irish Derby weekend he’s been struggling with it, but he’s been doing his best with it. When they found a stress fracture in his femur that was the answer. There is only one thing that is going to fix it and that’s time.”

When asked if he expected him to ride again this season, O’Brien said: “He’d be very lucky, I’d say. We’ve plenty of jockeys and the lads are all there, Wayne [Lordan] is gone [suspended] for Irish Champions’ Festival at the moment, but all the usual people, they’re all there, so everyone will row in.”

He went on: “Ryan runs a lot and they think it could be running and that might have originally started it. Then in Germany, when he was going to the start on the filly [Garden Of Eden at Düsseldorf] she whipped around and he landed on his feet and it could have aggravated it and opened it up.

“They have been treating him for a lot of different stuff, the back of his knee, and they thought he had burst something at the back of his heel, and they thought it might be ligaments and all this different stuff.

“It was only when he got whatever kind of a scan he had yesterday that they realised he had a fracture to his femur, so that was that.

“In all fairness to him, he’s been riding for probably two months with a fracture to his femur. Talk about concrete, that man is concrete. But with a little bit of time, he’ll be back.”