Aidan O’Brien – no Derby decision yet
Having dropped the bombshell, Aidan O’Brien was doing his best to defuse the situation.
A day after it was announced that Johnny Murtagh, having ridden what was supposed to be O’Brien’s No.1 Derby contender, St Nicholas Abbey, wanted more time before he came to a final decision, the trainer did his best to explain what was going on.
The Holy Grails of sport come in many guises, from the grand to the faintly gaudy, but the one that annually draws horsemen to Epsom with the power of a magnet is perhaps the simplest of them all.
Its importance was best summed up by Federico Tesio, the grandee of racehorse breeding in the 20th century, when he said that “the Thoroughbred exists because its selection has depended, not on experts, technicians, or zoologists, but on a piece of wood: the winning post of the Epsom Derby.”
Winning the Investec Derby matters to the people who matter in the fiscally-fueled, elite world of European Flat racing. It is why O’Brien, drawing from the vast battalions of the Coolmore bloodstock empire, has saddled a jaw-dropping 41 runners in the last 12 years. Such a numbers racket may have produced just two winners of the Classic - Galileo in 2001 and High Chaparral 12 months later – but the cash register of each breeding season rings loudly enough at Coolmore to more than balance the books.
O’Brien still has a possible six colts in the race but warned ante-post backers to hold their bets until plans were confirmed following mid-week gallops. However, many have already made their minds up and backed Jan Vermeer, the winner of the Gallinule Stakes at the Curragh last weekend.
Speaking in a TV interview O’Brien said: “St Nicholas Abbey worked with Midas Touch on Friday and worked as well as him but that was the unusual thing. Normally St Nicholas Abbey works head and shoulders above everything. He did a piece of work on Tuesday and Johnny was over the moon with him but he was a little bit disappointed on Friday morning so we decided to let everybody know.
“The problem with training horses is that everyone is different, there is no rule. His work was good, he worked very well. Colm [O'Donoghue] rode Midas Touch and he thought he had improved a lot from Leopardstown so that's also there but usually St Nicholas Abbey is head and shoulders above everything, he's the most incredible worker you've ever seen.
“I suppose it might have just taken Johnny back a bit that he just worked as well as Midas Touch. He wasn't disappointing, just not as scintillating as he usually is. There’s always a possibility that any horse wouldn't run, everything has to be right for them to run in a race like that so you could never say never.”
The time to say and act is fast approaching and O’Brien still has the option of the Prix Du Jockey Club, which is run at Chantilly the day after the Derby. It may not have quite the breeding cachet of its Epsom counterpart but it is still worth winning. “I think we'll make a final decision in the middle of the week,” O’Brien said. “Obviously we have to decide which horses will go to France. Viscount Nelson will definitely go there and whether something goes with him will be decided in the middle of the week. They'll work again on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the horses, we'll have the main work done by then.
“The two intended for Epsom were St Nicholas Abbey and Midas Touch, along with At First Sight. Jan Vermeer and Cape Blanco had the possibility of going to France too so if there was any doubt about St Nicholas Abbey there is a big chance Jan Vermeer might go to Epsom as well.
“But it's all up in the air and I would say to everybody to just wait and see because we wouldn't want to run him unless we were very happy with him."
Happiness for O’Brien would be a first Derby winner for eight years and, even though he admits that he has thrown a lot of darts at the target, he knows that the prize is just too valuable not to make use of all available ammunition.
“I think were getting more selective as the years go by, but that whole Thoroughbred breed is about that Derby,” he pointed out. “That’s what controls and that’s what everyone wants to breed – a Derby winner. All these horses a bred, fed, reared, trained to run in the race. And, if they come through their trials, it’s very hard on the horse and his pedigree and all his ancestors, owners and breeders to say ‘you don’t run in the Derby’. We all know there’s only one Derby every year and that’s about that piece of timber at the end of that.”
It may be a piece of wood but to O’Brien it would be solid gold.
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