O'Brien Excelling At Second Career

If pedigrees count for anything–and that, after all, is the premise that has kept his father's patrons in business for so long–then Joseph O'Brien was literally born to be a trainer. Not just his record-breaking “sire” Aidan, but also his “dam”, Annemarie, back in the days when she held the licence to train jumpers at Piltown, Co Kilkenny, are champions of the profession O'Brien formally embraced only in June. Nonetheless, it is staggering to see such a young man, still only 23, glide so coolly into the crucibles of their trade.

On Sunday, he saddled his maiden Group 1 winner when Intricately (Ire) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}) beat one of his father's fillies in a photo for the Moyglare Stud S. at The Curragh. The next day he was at the yearling sales in Keeneland, making a deal for a Scat Daddy (Johannesburg) colt that had failed to reach his reserve in the ring. And certainly there is something apt about the possibility that a trainer who himself represents the next generation might help sustain a precious new cycle, along with his father's star juvenile Caravaggio (Scat Daddy), for a sire who tragically only has one more crop of foals to come. For O'Brien's return to where his parents started out, in Piltown, is likewise a question of both continuity and new beginnings.

Certainly he is far too excited by the new challenge to dwell on the curtailment of his first career by those weight issues long inevitable with the maturity of so very tall a jockey. As it happens, O'Brien made his Group 1 breakthrough just five days after reminding everyone of his talents in the saddle, making a one-off return to win a charity race at the St Leger meeting. Happily, however, Intricately confirmed him not only in his conclusion that two Derby winners were sufficient reward for that punishing battle with the scales, but also in a preference for his new way of life.

“I miss the big days, of course, and I had unbelievable opportunities and rode some great horses,” he says. “I can still ride out if I want to sit on a particular horse, for whatever reason, though it would be hard to ride out every day and try to see a big string on the go. So you might only ride out if you were short-staffed at a weekend, for instance. But I love what I'm doing now. Training gives you a much bigger kick, because a lot more work goes into each individual horse. And Sunday was something else, we were all just over the moon.”

For once the euphoria, when the judge announced his verdict, was shared by the man who had saddled the runner-up. For what crowned the whole experience for the family was that Intricately was ridden by O'Brien's brother, Donnacha, who has proved seamlessly eligible for some of the opportunities created by his own retirement from the saddle; while the filly was home-bred by their mother. “Donnacha is still only 18 and himself and our sister, Ana, have both been doing really well,” O'Brien says. “They've ridden the vast majority of mine since I got started and Donnacha is leading the apprentice table, and Ana is in the top five as well. And of course with mum breeding the winner it really was a family affair. This is the mare's first foal but she's out of Offshore Boom (GB) (Be My Guest), and so a half-sister to Rock Of Gibraltar (Ire) (Danehill), and obviously mum and dad have been involved with that family all the way through.”

It was Annemarie's father, Joe Crowley, who bought Offshore Boom for just Ir£11,000 at Goffs in 1997–from none other than Moyglare, sponsors of Sunday's big race. After she produced the top-class miler Rock Of Gibraltar, the mare was sent to the champion sire to produce the dam of Intricately, Inner Realm (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). Though confined to just two autumn starts as a 3-year-old, showing only a modicum of ability, Inner Realm represents the same nick as the 4-year-old Zhukova (Ire) (Fastnet Rock {Aus})–a Group 2 winner for Dermot Weld, likewise out of Galileo mare, at Leopardstown on the first day of Irish Champions Weekend.

“With that pedigree, you'd hope she would make a 3-year-old,” O'Brien says of Intricately. “So I'd imagine she will have just the one more run this year. She's in the G1 Dubai Fillies' Mile at Newmarket, and more than likely that's where she'll go–though the Moyglare is a 'Win-and-You're-In' for the Breeders' Cup, so that might be the other option.”

Intricately had won a Gowran Park maiden on her debut in June before taking third in consecutive Group 3 and Group 2 races, on each occasion behind a filly she was able to beat on Sunday. Both her wins have come as an outsider, 33-1 for her maiden and 25-1 at the Curragh, but O'Brien is adamant that he was not merely hoping to sneak a Group 1 place. “We were fairly confident she was a huge price on Sunday,” he says. “You couldn't say she was going to win, of course, but she was definitely going to give you a good run for your money. Both mentally and physically she has been improving all summer, and she's bred to improve with time and racing. And while she's obviously improved a lot since Gowran, her win that day was only a surprise because the filly she'd been working with had come out and run badly. Intricately is a very well-bred, laid-back filly, and those can improve and improve.”

He has often seen as much, of course, at Ballydoyle. Young as he is, O'Brien has been absorbing the look, feel and development of top-class Thoroughbreds since boyhood. But while his father is a private trainer, O'Brien faces a different challenge in building up a stable with outside clients. “This is the first time I've been to Keeneland and obviously it's all very competitive,” he says. “But I've been around the best horses and horsemen in the world for as long as I can remember, so I'd like to think I've taken something on board. I'm very much enjoying going round the sales and am really looking forward to the next couple of months.”

Sunday was only the latest evidence that O'Brien has inherited a special gift. On his very first day with a licence, he sent out four winners; while one of his unofficial charges, pending completion of the paperwork, had in March won a Grade 1 hurdle at the premier jumps meeting of the calendar, the Cheltenham Festival. Just as in his riding days, however, his blessings will bring their own burdens. Doubtless some, seeing Qatar Racing and the China Horse Club already among his patrons, will again be reluctant to acknowledge the exceptional merit that so amply justified the Coolmore partners in asking him to wear their silks in the Derby or at the Breeders' Cup. But, it is not just the horsemanship that seems immediately familiar in the rookie trainer. No less than his father, O'Brien plainly matches the family trademark of modesty and politeness with a steely determination to succeed.

“Dad is a very competitive man, of course he is,” he says. “You have to be, in this game. You have to want to win every day, to want to improve all the time. That's what drives us. People can say that your opportunities bring pressure, that you have to keep hitting the board. But that pressure is exactly what everyone wants to feel.”