AIDAN IS THE SPECIAL ONE
26-win record is work of a genius
SO now we know who Aidan O’Brien speaks to immediately after he has secured yet another big-race win. His mother.
Stella O’Brien phoned her boy with congratulations seconds after Saxon Warrior had won Saturday’s Racing Post Trophy to land Aidan’s 26th Group One win, breaking the record previously held by late US trainer Bobby Frankel.
Amid the congratulations in the Doncaster paddock, O’Brien clasped his mobile to his ear and replied: ‘Thanks very much Ma. We’ll talk to you later. Thank you. Bye, bye, bye, bye.’
Stella was denied the chance to congratulate her son again yesterday when protesters representing French trainers and owners blocked the parade ring, causing the prestigious meeting at Saint-Cloud to be abandoned.
Stella’s phone bill may only have enjoyed a temporary reprieve as O’Brien plans to run 13 horses at the Breeders’ Cup in California on Friday and Saturday, part of a record European challenge of 36 horses for the $28million (€24m) meeting dubbed racing’s world championships.
Family is imperative to teetotal O’Brien, 48. Alongside him in the Doncaster paddock were wife AnneMarie and daughter Sarah.
Younger siblings Donnacha and Ana, who is recovering from serious injuries that robbed her of the Irish apprentice jockeys’ title, are very much part of O’Brien’s jockey team at his Ballydoyle stable in Tipperary.
Eldest son Joseph was entrusted with some of his most important rides, including twice winning the Derby on Camelot (2012) and Australia (2014), until he turned to training.
Ask O’Brien how he relaxes away from racing and he looks puzzled. Racing appears to be his life.
Before taking his first licence in 1993, O’Brien was an amateur jockey, often given the most difficult horses to ride while assistant to Jim Bolger, a trainer with a reputation as a fierce disciplinarian.
Bolger said: ‘He is a grade one human being himself and he seems to go about everything right.’
Tony McCoy said of him: ‘I remember Jim Bolger saying he would have done anything other than marry Aidan to keep him. I don’t think I have ever heard Jim say that about anyone.
‘If there was ever a problem with a horse it was, “Speak to Aidan O’Brien about it’’. That’s as good a compliment as you can give anyone.”