Aidan O'Brien© Photo Healy Racing
Did the fact Ryan Giggs won a lot more medals than George Best make him a better Manchester Utd player? Does the fact Roger Federer has won the most Grand-Slam titles automatically make him tennis’ greatest ever? Definitive answers are impossible but it’s still difficult to argue with stark statistical evidence and how the facts and figures point to unarguable evidence of Aidan O’Brien’s supreme training ability.
Aidan O’Brien is a great trainer. Whether or not he’s the greatest, either ever or even now, is a hopelessly subjective matter and trivial too: but trivial isn’t the same thing as irrelevant since O’Brien is entering uncharted statistical waters that may yet move success parameters far over the current horizon.
Australia’s Derby win was O’Brien’s 21st classic in Britain to date. Vincent O’Brien had sixteen in total. The current Master of Ballydoyle has to get just four more to equal Henry Cecil’s final tally. Already O’Brien’s Irish classic total is a record thirty, three ahead of MV, who’s only got one Epsom Derby in hand. The Derby record of seven is held by three trainers – Fred Darling, Robert Robson and John Porter. Before Saturday, no one had ever trained a hat-trick of Epsom Derby winners. O’Brien is just forty four.
That’s the staggering part. It’s less than twenty years since he first started at Ballydoyle. There isn’t much normal about a career that already ranks among the most successful ever but judged by normal working life-spans O’Brien is only half-way – at least. If he wants to, and he shows no signs of wearying, and as long as the Coolmore production line keeps producing, there is no knowing how far the statistical boundaries will have to be recalibrated by the time he calls time.
Many already take the record-book as incontrovertible evidence of O’Brien’s entitlement to be regarded as the supreme exponent of his trade. And many others will take the exact opposite tack. That’s the thing with having the overwhelming might of John Magnier & Co behind you: middle ground is hard to find when it comes to estimations.
The strident counter argument is that if O’Brien wasn’t rewriting the record books with the level of raw material being given to him then he should be run out of Ballydoyle. Success is presumed with the gig and often only failure becomes noteworthy. Any number of trainers could do the same with the same resources is a well-worn claim. And when you consider how Messrs Weld, Oxx and Bolger for instance are true legends of the game as well, it’s a tough one to argue against.
O’Brien himself you suspect would make the same point. There may be an occasional suspicion of promiscuity when it comes to handing out ‘best-ever’ superlatives to horses in his charge but the champion trainer is notably circumspect when it comes to blowing his own trumpet.
The last thing you’ll ever hear from O’Brien is any declaration of supposed genius, a relief in a culture where the ‘g’ word is bandied about with frivolous abandon: if Madonna’s a genius, what does that make Mozart?
Personally speaking if anyone in racing has ever approached genius then it is surely the man who created Ballydoyle in the first place. Vincent O’Brien fundamentally altered the face of a global industry through breadth of vision and an intuition that those who knew him well insisted was freakish.
The vision thing means the foundations have long since been firmly in place for his namesake to have the best of the best to work with. But in terms of intuition and instinct with horses, the current Master of Ballydoyle surely bows to no one.
Listen to the administrative grapevine and an arresting picture is being painted about racing’s future finances and what might happen should Sinn Fein politicians ever get their hands on government purse-strings. Since there appears to be a remorseless electoral tide towards choosing to forget what some Shinner worthies have been involved with in the past, this might not be an academic exercise for long.
But horsey types probably shouldn’t sweat up too much. A class of opportunist patriot riding the bloody coat-tails of fundamentalist fanatics looks ripe for persuasion to the charms of keeping the money-hose open. It’s not as if there’s no evidence of political worthies in love with swanning around racecourses in the national interest.
And if you believe other grapevines it’s not as if racing hasn’t swollen patriotic coffers in the past. No names of course, just to stay protected you understand.
No doubt the Curragh authorities will have everything crossed that Australia tries to bring off a Derby double in just under three weeks time but an awful lot is going to depend on the ground, which means an awful lot is going to depend on the weather, which means toss-of-the-coin stuff in the midst of an Irish summer.
In four of the last seven years of the Irish Derby there has been at least “yielding” in the going description. Two of those years produced officially “soft to heavy” ground. One of them was 2012 and Camelot’s win, and the clear impression from Ballydoyle is there is no chance of risking their latest superstar if the ground isn’t suitable, no matter what impact that might have on the race’s prestige.
Maybe it’s no coincidence then that Roger Varian is already talking of giving serious consideration to a trip to the Curragh with Kingston Hill who just happens to be owned by Derrick Smith’s son, Paul.
And finally, the reaction of Steve Coburn, one of California Chrome’s owners, to Belmont defeat was car-crash stuff – awful but fascinating at the same time. Mrs Coburn looked to know best but struggled in vain to rein in her husband.
Steve has been getting it in the neck for his rank exhibition of how not to lose with dignity. But it’s hard not to be too critical. Whatever is written or said about him, the silence at home right now is likely to hurt a lot more!
