Aidan O'Brien has confirmed he will no longer be training jumpers from his Piltown stable, but will instead concentrate on his flat string at Ballydoyle.

The move had long been predicted, and O'Brien's sister-in-law, Frances Crowley, recently granted a training licence, will now take up the reins at Piltown in time for the 1989-99 jumps season, which starts on Monday.

"Next season I will only have a handful of jumpers at Ballydoyle including the likes of Istabraq and Theatreworld," O'Brien said yesterday. "Frances will be training from Piltown. It's sad in a way, because we started out with the jump horses. But after everybody had their say, the decision was made."

Although the decision was seen as inevitable given the increasingly high profile of the horses at Ballydoyle, it means the end of an unprecedented numerical dominance of the Irish National Hunt scene which O'Brien had established since 1993.