KIA JOORABCHIAN has taken all of his remaining horses out of Roger Varian’s yard – including the crocked King Of Steel.
The top four-year-old has been moved to trainer Dominic Ffrench-Davis, despite picking up a potentially season-ending injury on the gallops on Wednesday.
Just 24 hours later, he was registered on the BHA website as having moved yards, and Ffrench-Davis confirmed the horse was with him when asked for comment at Newbury.
As Sunracing revealed earlier this week, football agent Joorabchian removed a handful of runners from Varian’s stable and also sent them to Ffrench-Davis after the pair fell out while in France for the sales last week.
The controversial owner then refused to answer questions about his and the Classic-winning trainer’s relationship in a cryptic interview on ITV.
Joorabchian said: “No horses are moving around. We have our own yard and all our injured horses go there.”
Joorabchian’s Amo Racing operation does have a private yard next door to Ffrench-Davis in Lambourn.
But if King Of Steel had been moved to a private yard for rehabilitation and was still trained by Varian, the horse’s trainer would not have been changed by the BHA.
And when asked if the horse would go back to Varian when fit, Joorabchian said: “I don’t like to talk about the future.
“I saw the horse today, he looks great. We are very heartbroken about what’s happened.
“He was a very sound horse and I believed he shouldn’t be where he is today.
“We won’t rush him, we will wait until he is 100% before we make decisions.”
But Varian, whose horse Charyn finished second in the Group 1 Lockinge, later clarified the situation at Newbury, saying: “I have no Amo horses in the yard at the moment.
“I’m not mud-slinging, I’ve got huge respect for Kia and we’ve been on a hell of a ride the last 12 months. I was grateful for the opportunity to train King Of Steel and a few others.
“I had a great opportunity, other people lose out and I’ve lost out before. It’s an up-and-down game but we have to move on.”
