THE transfer window is a vacuum for rumours and lies. If you believed everything you heard and was reported in the past couple of months, Man United would have spent a billion euro and be lining out next weekend with one defender and nine attacking players. Rooney, Cavani and Pedro would be confined to sitting on the bench.

So as anyone who has run into the local gossip outside the grocery store or after Sunday mass will tell you, truth isn’t mandatory when it comes to the telling of a good story. It’s all about the juice and how people will react.

David O’Meara has been at the centre of his own little transfer narrative in the past few months which he admits to having found quite frustrating. Having worked hard to build up a base of loyal owners, he could do without the seeds of uncertainty being sown.

Some observers claim that he is bound for Warren Place in the event of Sheikh Mohammed purchasing the Newmarket training establishment made famous by Sir Noel Murless and Sir Henry Cecil.

The link with Coolmore, and specifically with taking over from Aidan O’Brien at Ballydoyle, was being declared as fact in some quarters until O’Meara rejected it out of hand lately, declaring that he had never received any approach.

“It is a little bit irritating,” O’Meara says, while munching on a sandwich, having just completed his entries. “People are always asking you what you are doing. Is this or that true? People ask you all the time assuming they know because somebody heard it here, there or anywhere. It’s like most things - rumours are rumours.”

With all due respect to Jonathan Walters, the hard-working Republic of Ireland international has never been linked with a move to Old Trafford, apart from his own self-deprecating tweet earlier in the week.

Such speculation is an indication of O’Meara’s meteoric rise since joining the training ranks in June 2010 after a 13-year career as a jump jockey that yielded an Aintree Fox Hunters Chase victory on Bells Life in 2000.

YORKSHIRE TRAINERS

The 38-year-old Fermoy native is now in the vanguard of a new movement in Britain, with Yorkshire as much a training centre for top class flat horses as Newmarket. O’Meara, fellow Irishmen Richard Fahey and Kevin Ryan, and Mark Johnston are firmly ensconced among the top 10 trainers in Britain. The number of group winners, accumulation of prize money and profile of owners willing to send valuable stock up north is a testament to their talents.

Simple Jim provided O’Meara with his first winner (at Redcar on June 19th) within days of opening for business at Arthington Barn, in the north Yorkshire village of Nawton. Blue Bajan bagged the stable’s first group success 11 months later at Sandown while last year, Louis The Pious claimed the first Royal Ascot victory in the Buckingham Palace Stakes and G Force (Haydock Sprint Cup) and Move In Time (Prix de l’Abbaye) brought Group 1 glory.

It has continued to rip along at breakneck pace in 2015. The past couple of months in particular have been remarkable. So Beloved made it 500 winners in the £150,000 Betfred Mile on the last day of July, representing a remarkable rate of success in 62 months as a trainer.

The five-year-old plundered a Group 3 pot at Goodwood last Sunday, following up on a similar success by Mondialiste at York the previous week.

August had begun with Amazing Maria’s spectacular defeat of Ervedya in the Prix Rothschild at Deauville. The Mastercraftsman filly has been a wonderful recruit to the yard this term, having previously been trained by Ed Dunlop, and has doubled O’Meara’s Group 1 tally, having also won the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.

Amazing Maria has now been victorious in her last three races after coming home a two-length winner of the Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot. O’Meara and his staff had been on something of a learning curve with the four-year-old grey until then but all indications are that she will take a lot of beating in the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown on day one of the Longines Irish Champions Weekend next Saturday.

“It’s been great this year now. She seems in good form. We’re looking forward to bringing her over.

“She was very straightforward from the time she arrived. She settled in well. On her first run at Ascot, we probably made a move a little bit soon with her. After that then she went to Ireland (the Curragh) and with no cover she just pulled a little hard but still ran very, very well (to finish third behind Brooch and Ramone in the Lanwades Stud Stakes.)

“So when she won at Royal Ascot, the plan was very much to drop her in last and play her late. That worked out really well that day. I think she improved from Ascot to Newmarket and she looked as impressive as any of her runs in France.”

All of her good runs this year have come on good ground or faster. With an ease not altogether unlikely in Leopardstown, might that be a concern?

“She’s got some very good form as a two-year-old old on soft or slow ground. It was widely believed that she wanted a cut in the ground before this year. In fact I had a conversation with Sir Robert Ogden and we deliberated whether to pull her out of Royal Ascot due to quick ground.”

That’s not to say there are no concerns as her best form has clearly been on firmer going. But she has shown an ability to perform to a very high standard on slower ground as a juvenile and being older now, one imagines that it would take something biblical to prevent Amazing Maria making the trip.

She won’t be on her own as the ultra-consistent Custom Cut is entered for the Boomerang Stakes on the same day.

“He’s a great little horse. He’s very tough, goes in any ground, nearly always gives his running and is a brilliant horse to have around the place. His run behind Kodi Bear the last day was very good. He gave Kodi Bear 12lb (and was less than six lengths back in third). Kodi Bear has come out again and won in Goodwood.”

It would mean a lot to come away with a winner, just as he did last year. Whatever happens, he is convinced that Irish Champions Weekend is here to stay.

“I’m looking forward to it. It will be exciting. Last year we brought over Watchable and he won the big sprint handicap on the Sunday (in the Curragh). We’re not alien to it.

“I would have thought it is here for good now. It’s great racing, good prize money. The Champion Stakes is on the Saturday as well, the same day as the Matron and that is a race to look forward to. It’s a great weekend.”

TEAM’S HARD WORK

You wonder if he pinches himself given the speed with which he has accelerated up the ranks. Whatever the business plan, it could hardly have been predicated on this level of success.

“It has gone very well and grown very quickly. There’s an awful lot of hard work by a good young team that’s willing to get stuck in. We’re delighted with the success but it wasn’t easy. There’s an awful lot of hard work and commitment by a lot of people.”

Getting to the top is one thing. Staying there is an altogether different affair.

“At the beginning of this year, the target really was to try to get 100 winners and a million pounds in prize money. We’d done 100 winners the last two years – 136 and 116. We had done £1.7m last year and £1.3m the year before. So £1.7m looked hard to beat but I thought if we did 100 winners and a million pounds it would be a good bar. We’re on about 104 winners now and we’ve done nearly £1.5m. So it’s gone great again.”

DANNY TUDHOPE

The previously unheralded Danny Tudhope has become a significant element of the success story. The jockey’s story is another example of the virtues of patience and the importance of luck in making it at the highest level.

“Silvestre de Sousa was riding most of them and Danny was having a bit of a bad time in his career. Silvestre brought him in to ride out. At that stage it was a case of riding out in the short term with a chance of getting the odd ride here and there.

“He started getting on a few and ended up riding our first group winner with Blue Bajan. And then Silvestre started to ride more and more for Mark Johnston and became less available, so Danny started to ride more and more for us. Then Silvestre was taken down south to Godolphin and by then Danny was riding all of them anyway.”

The trajectory of O’Meara’s ascent is almost vertical. There have been so many landmark achievements recently, he finds it extremely difficult to choose one. After all, the first winner is everything when it arrives.

“G Force was very special winning the first Group 1 for the yard but there’ve been so many highs. Penitent winning, Custom Cut winning his races, Blue Bajan winning his Group 2… the Ayr Gold Cup with Louis (The Pious), first Royal Ascot winner (also with Louis The Pious)… there’s been so many.”

TARGET DAYS

While the seasonal targets have already been hit, it is the nature of all high-achievers to reset their goals in such a scenario. There are some huge days down the line and O’Meara aims to be represented at most of them.

“Amazing Maria might end up in the Breeders’ Cup all being well. That would be very exciting for the yard. Mondialiste, who won in York recently, might be going to Canada for the Woodbine Mile and again, that would be very exciting.

“We’ve got all the big heritage handicaps like the Cambridgeshire, the Ayr Gold Cup to look forward to here domestically and then obviously the Prix de l’Abbaye. Move In Time will go back there again to try win that a second year in a row. That would be brilliant to do.”