'They’re a lot further along than we were at their age' - sons' success keeps O'Brien Sr motivated

Scandanavia and Dean Gallagher pictured for Irish Champions Weekend Media Morning with trainer Aidan O'Brien on Monday. Pic: Healy Racing

Ballydoyle Aidan O’Brien may have already set records that will never be matched but the master of Ballydoyle admits the achievements of sons Joseph and Donnacha serve as a motivation to stay at the top.

“Definitely,” O’Brien Sr replied when asked if the exploits of his sons serve an inspiration to himself and wife Annmarie before arguing 33-year-old Joseph and 28-year-old Donnacha are better trainers that he was at their age.

“They’re a lot further along than we were at their age,” the 12-time Derby-winning trainer said. “When we were their age we were kind of chancing our arm working along but they know an awful lot more than we did at that stage. But the good thing about it for us is when they learn stuff, they’re happy to tell us still… for the moment!

“That’s an advantage to us, we’re learning a lot from them because they’re learning a lot from the outside world, from people and facilities that we wouldn’t be exposed to and they’re happy to share the information with us.” 

After three decades at Ballydoyle, 56-year-old O’Brien remains as focused and motivated as ever. Asked how he remains so relentlessly driven, he replied simply: “We love what we do. It’s our hobby, our interest, our passion all in one. We don’t do anything else. We have a lot of commitments to meet and obviously we have to get results.

“Some people would get bored doing this job every day but we’ve always been fascinated by horses and the lads are coming along behind us and I know they’re going to jump over us very shortly so that’s a motivation to keep working as well.

“That’s the reality of it, we’re getting old and they’re young and they’re coming and it’s the same with young trainers all over the world. Our thing always was that we would do our best every day, every minute of the day, and accept whatever results we get and be grateful for it.

“Obviously you make loads of mistakes and we get punished but we can’t fight every fight, every day as the season goes on. You have to leave a little bit for the start, the middle and the back [end of the season]. You have to compete in those races in between because horses have to keep match-practised but you can’t keep squeezing the last drop every day and because of it you often get beat.”