the legend (not genius) that is ...

​Who is the world’s greatest horse trainer? Of course, the answer will be subjective? An American reader might answer completely differently to the one I, and perhaps the majority, would choose, an Australian would doubtless vigorously disagree with both points of view. And does quantity of big race successes outpoint someone who through their career boxed above their weight, winning good races with cheap, unsound or few horses? But the champion trainers of the U.S. or Australia will only have succeeded in one division of the sport, the flat, with neither country having any worthwhile history of steeplechasing or hurdle racing.
It is hard to imagine someone whose record continues to outshine the current incumbent of Ballydoyle, even as ridiculously successful as Aidan O’Brien has been over the past twenty years since he won the Irish 1,000 Guineas, Irish 2,000 Guineas and Irish Derby in 1997. Some way to announce yourself to the sport on your journey to near world domination. Yet for all he has achieved on the flat, and it must be admitted Aidan has already outstripped his predecessor with his runners on the flat, even if Vincent O’Brien put down the foundations for Aidan to build upon, he would be no one’s candidate for the G.O.A.T award.
Incidentally, did you know that Aidan’s schooling went no higher than secondary level (no better than myself) and that his first two jobs were weeding strawberries and driving a fork-lift at the Waterford Co-op? And he survived the hard-knock apprenticeship as an underling of Jim Bolger’s academy of high achievers.
Aidan, it can be said, only played at the jumping game compared to Vincent, albeit that he trained Istabraq, the horse Aidan nominated as the best horse to have graced Ballydoyle during his tenure, to win three Champion Hurdles. Vincent, as is famously known, won 3 Grand Nationals in sequence, each time with a different horse. And 4 Cheltenham Gold Cups, 3 Champion Hurdles and 10 individual winners of either division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle, now the Supreme or is it the 2-mile 5-furlong novice, whatever it is called?
And as good as Istabraq was, he never added to his 3 Champion Hurdles (should have been 4 if it was not for the outbreak of foot and mouth) as Vincent achieved with Hatton’s Grace when he not only also won the Irish Lincolnshire but the Irish Cesarewitch two years in succession. He also won the Irish Cesarewitch with Cottage Rake and just for good measure the Naas November Handicap, not bad going for a staying chaser. In my book that is an achievement deserving of greater accolades that those he received for winning 6 Epsom Derbies. Can you imagine Willie Mullins running Al Boum Photo in similar flat races? Actually, yes I can. Or Nicky Henderson preparing Altior for the Lincoln? That’s a better example.
Oddly, compared to his success over jumps on this side of the Irish Sea, his success in his own country was quite meagre, with only 5 major victories, and only 1 Irish Grand National to his name. He did win, though, both the Galway Plate and the Galway Hurdle.
The most over-used word in the English language at present is ‘genius’, a description of so many people, especially sportsman, that we all know, as they do themselves, no doubt, that is utterly unfitting. The English cricketer Ben Stokes was only today in The Times thusly applauded. I know little about cricket and though I would be easily convinced that Ben Stokes is a brilliant batsman and perhaps the best in the world as of today, I cannot accept he is a genius, a man of similar merit to people through the ages who through influence or imagination have altered their sphere of influence.
And perhaps the word should not be applied to Vincent O’Brien. He is not Mozart, Hawking, Newton, Churchill; his life’s work has not altered the way the common man lives his life. He was though, in his sphere of influence for several decades, the dominant force, a spirit that reigned supreme. He didn’t achieve his immortality in the sport without the help and guidance of others, of course. Through sheer hard work and believe in himself he most certainly set the ball of destiny rolling. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He did not set up training with a stable bursting at the seams with horses with an excess of blue-blood running through their veins. He started with 1 winner in 1943 and finished in 1994 with 1,529, a moderate total by today’s standards. But then he never had more than 60 horses under his care in any one season.
But who else is their to rival Vincent O’Brien when it comes to the title ‘Greatest of All Time’?
If anyone is interested in reading up on O’Brien’s career, I can heartily recommend Raymond Smith’s exhaustively researched and well-written biography of the great man, ‘Vincent O’Brien: The Man & The Legend’. A book befitting any racing library.