O’BRIEN TAKES RECORD AFTER WARRIOR WIN

AIDAN O’BRIEN raised his domination of the Flat racing world to a new level as Saxon Warrior gave him a recordbreaking 26th Group One win of the year in the Racing Post Trophy.

Appropriately, the way it was achieved, reflected the pattern of big Flat races in 2017.

In the last Group One of the British season run into a stiff headwind, O’Brien’s Ryan Moore-ridden 13-8 favourite regained the lead in the last 100 yards after being headed by John Gosden-trained runner-up Roaring Lion to win by a neck, with stablemate The Pentagon third.

Try as they might — and Gosden has done better than most thanks to the efforts of his star horses Enable and Cracksman — trainers have found it nigh on impossible to beat O’Brien and his blueblooded Ballydoyle battalions.

The 48-year-old greeted his achievement in beating the record set by late US trainer Bobby Frankel in trademark undemonstrative style amid the more raucous celebrations of his entourage.

O’Brien said: ‘We came here expecting it not to happen because usually it doesn’t.

‘A lot of hard work that goes into it and it starts with these two-year-olds two years ago. I feel so privileged to be working with so many great people.

‘We are so delighted it happened today. It would have been so easy to get to the end of the year and not win another one. You’d have said we were beaten half a furlong out today but Ryan gave Saxon Warrior a great ride.

‘Through the season, you don’t get much time go home and look back at what happened. Hopefully, at the end of the season we relax and look back at what happened.’