Versed in the Classics

One helicopter ride across the Irish Sea later, he saw Kieren Fallon and Footstepsinthesand bring him the 19th Classic victory of his career. Before many punters had exited the course, the greatest trainer of his generation was airborne and heading home to Ballydoyle, Co. Tipperary, to rejoin the celebration of Joseph’s confirmation. Just another father juggling work and parenting.
That image isn’t too far from the truth either. The trainer who rewrote the record books in Ireland and England over the past decade has over 130 thoroughbreds under his hand at Ballydoyle yet each afternoon, still finds time for a trek on the ponies with his four children. The remarkable multi-tasker has dispatched five horses to New York to prepare for the Breeders’ Cup meet at Belmont Park next Saturday. When O’Brien catches up with his contenders on the Long Island track, he’ll be returning to a venue that’s been good to him.
Last time the Breeders’ Cup came to New York, Mick Kinane and Johannesburg destroyed the field in the $1 million Juvenile and handed O’Brien his first victory in the annual international All-Star meet that has been dubbed “Racing’s Olympics.” If the American media didn’t know quite what to make of the reticent, bespectacled trainer who looked a whole lot younger than his 32 years, their European counterparts summed it up nicely for them.
His success that afternoon prompted the Daily Telegraph to describe O’Brien’s 2001 campaign as the most successful in the history of sport. Even before romping home at Belmont, Johannesburg had hoovered up Europe’s top two-year-old races and stable mates had brought back seven European Classics: the Oaks (Imagine), the Derby and Irish Derby (Galileo), the French and Irish 1,000 Guineas (Rose Gypsy), the Irish 2,000 Guineas (Black Minnaloushe) and the St Leger (Milan).
Setting a world record 23 Group One victories in a year was an incredible achievement and spawned a thousand more comparisons between the trainer and his predecessor as Master of Ballydoyle, Vincent O’Brien. The two men are not related by blood but inextricably linked by the measure of their achievements. The elder O’Brien, winner of 43 Classics, was recently voted the greatest figure in the history of the sport by readers of the Racing Post, the sport’s bible – a deserved accolade. That his younger namesake has already amassed 21 Classic triumphs of his own offers a sense of where he may one day be ranked.
His road to the top started inauspiciously enough. He left school at 15, worked as a forklift driver and fruit-picker before finally starting out on the racing ladder as a stable lad with Jim Bolger in Carlow.
“I would ride out in the morning and do just about everything,” said O’Brien of his apprenticeship there. “Jim expects the best from you all the time, if you give it to him, he is good to you. I learnt pretty well all I know from him.”
Bolger must have been some teacher. O’Brien became champion amateur jockey and started training, first with his wife Anne-Marie (herself a champion trainer), and then on his own license in 1993. In just his second campaign, he broke the record for most wins in a year over jumps, and soon was invited to take over the palatial and fabled Ballydoyle.
The move offered the chance to compete on the flat with horses owned by the Coolmore syndicate. Simply put, his talent was given access to the best thoroughbreds available and he didn’t disappoint. His first English Classic came in 1998 and in 2001, he won the British trainers’ title. No Irish-based trainer had taken that championship since Vincent O’Brien. The following year he won it again.
“He’s a pussycat with claws,” said Kinane in 2002. “Naturally enough, he was under a lot of pressure taking over Ballydoyle – the huge tradition, the huge responsibility of following in Vincent’s footsteps. It took him a year or two to come to terms with it all. But now he knows he’s the right man for the job. Everybody around him knows that. He’s a man of vision, always probing, always looking to see how he can improve. He hates making mistakes, with any horse.”
Although 2002 was another bumper year, a virus swept through the yard that summer and the following two seasons were to be massive disappointments. Kinane was replaced as stable jockey by Jamie Spencer, but the change of rider had little effect on Ballydoyle’s fortunes. Spencer was blamed by many for the embarrassing disqualification of Powerscourt after he’d finished first in the Arlington Million in Illinois last year, and the jockey’s ill-chosen tactics were deemed culpable too for the same animal’s subsequent failure in the Breeders’ Cup in Dallas.
As the string of problems continued, relations between Spencer and O’Brien deteriorated so much that a few weeks before the start of this season the jockey resigned from his post. Many figured that to be one more embarrassment for Ballydoyle but O’Brien turned it into an opportunity. In choosing Clare’s Kieren Fallon as his replacement, he went for somebody whose colorful personal life and ongoing brushes with the law sometimes overshadowed his undoubted talent. It was a bold move that has paid dividends.
“The thing about Aidan,” said Fallon, “is that he has dedicated his whole life to the horses. Everything is done right and nobody puts more into it than the trainer.”
Fallon’s arrival has coincided with O’Brien and Ballydoyle starting to regain some of that old luster. Three Classic wins and a host of Group One triumphs this season served notice the stable was back on track. Still, they arrive in Belmont with five contenders, none of whom would be regarded as favorites in their races. Of them all, Oratorio in the Classic could be O’Brien’s surprise package.
“Oratorio is a tough, solid horse who gets 1 1/2 miles really well,” said O’Brien this week. “We’re going to hope he adapts to the dirt.”
Nobody better at teaching him how.