Ruby Walsh: What Joseph O'Brien has achieved is simply remarkable
Twilight Payment and Jye McNiel give trainer Joseph O'Brien his second Melbourne Cup winner. Picture: Healy Racing.
What a week! Quilixios, Ballyadam, Sir Gerhard, Farouk D’Alene and Chemical Energy all became new names to follow for the winter. Aspire Tower and Battleoverdoyen re-established their reputations as horses with a chance of becoming stars, and the brightest star of them all, Envoi Allen, shown as brilliantly as ever.
That was only the National Hunt action from last weekend. A couple of days later, Twilight Payment became the fourth and most recent Irish winner of the Melbourne Cup. Dermot Weld trained the first two - Vintage Crop and Media Puzzle - but when Vintage Crop won the first one, in 1993, nobody could have known the man who was going to train the third and fourth ones was only just born.
That’s 1993, not 1893 - a mere 27 years ago. And when you look and think about what a 27-year-old Joseph O’Brien has achieved, it is simply remarkable.
Being born the son of Aidan O’Brien and Anne Marie Crowley gave him a massive head start in terms of resources and opportunity, but it did not guarantee that he would have the talent or appetite for the job he is doing.
Nor did it guarantee he would have he have an open enough mind to take in all the knowledge or wisdom that was circulating around him as he grew up.
He outshone his parents as a rider before moving into the training ranks to begin a career in opposition to his father. Yes, he got the backing of some of his father’s massive and powerful bosses, but people who are successful in business are not sentimental. Success was the only way Joseph could guarantee his own position as a trainer because reputation will only carry anyone a certain distance.
He needed to have the talent and knowhow to generate results from every resource he was given and to turn those opportunities into the only currency that matters in horse racing: winners.
Not alone has he managed to do that; he has done so with clients not totally renowned for the success at Ballydoyle. Lloyd Williams, owner of his Irish Derby and Melbourne Cup winners, along with Mrs C C Regalado-Gonzalez, owner of his Breeders’ Cup winner Iridessa, are fairly new investors to Irish racing.
He may have been handed a gold plate, but he is turning it into a golden tray, and his rise on a global stage can only be good for Ireland. The more success our trainers have on the international stage the more awareness it brings to our product and, in Joseph, Irish racing has a young man with a gift helping to fly the flag.
Last year, I do believe I suggested Navan should try and amalgamate some of its winter fixtures to make some blockbuster cards, and tomorrow’s is most certainly that, albeit it has happened by necessity rather than design.
Obviously, with no crowds there is no hospitality, so the opportunity to put the Troytown and Fortria chases on the one card is a financially easier pill for Navan to swallow. But sadly, this really competitive and exciting card is going head to head with the knockout All Ireland football championship.
Meath are away to Wicklow and the throw-in, along with four other matches, is at 1.30pm, just before the white flag will drop in the Troytown Chase. But, thankfully for racing, the day’s big game from a neutral’s point of view is not until 4pm when Kerry face Cork.
So, the For Auction, Lismullen and Fortria card now has the added the excitement of the Troytown Chase.
N’golo must concede a 4lb dual winner’s penalty to Eskylane in the For Auction and that will be no easy task. But One Down, Jessie Evans and Annexation are also interesting contenders in the first of the graded races. That said, Eskylane’s bumper form and promising hurdling debut probably make him the percentage call.
The Lismullen Hurdle sees Ronald Pump return to action. He posted a career-best effort in finishing second to Lisnagar Oscar in the Stayers Hurdle and Mathew Smith’s stable star looks the star on show to me.
At 2.10, A Plus Tard reappears in the Fortria like he did last season but, luckily for him, there is no Ballyoisin in this year’s renewal so he can succeed where he failed last term.
The Troytown is as competitive as it always has been, and a full field of runners are set to face the narrow downhill run to the first fence. It is not really narrow, but it feels like it is when 22 horses break from a walk to a very strong gallop in two seconds, and you can only half see where you are going if you are not in the front line.
Will the race being run two weeks earlier than usual affect the trends? I don’t know but think it could and I would be siding with the horses who have proven fitness this season.
That only rules out seven, but I am willing to rule out five more who pulled up on their last starts, so now we are down to 10. Of those I have left, I think I like the look of last year’s third, Portmore Lough. He is 2lbs higher than when he contested the race last season, but he is Mark Walsh’s pick from five possible, and that will do me.
