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I was reading Kevin Blake’s tribute to aiden O’Brien on at the races website and noticed just how prolific he was pre coolmore days. He had 241 jumps winners one season which is a staggering amount in Ireland. In his first three years at coolmore he still ran coolmore and Annemarie O’Brien’s yard and in 1997 won the Irish trainers championship on the flat and over jumps. Just a few of the amazing stats that show wherever he ended up he would have set records galore. What if he had been Godolphins main trainer. How different history may have been.
How many other trainers could have churned out his numbers given the unlimited ammunition at his disposal?
I like Aidan but to claim he’s some sort of genius is nonsense. And he would agree.
He is clearly a very good trainer but I am not sure about unique talent. I am sure plenty of other trainers could have done the same provided with the raw material.
If Willie Mullins had been appointed as Ballydoyle trainer and given a production line of Galileos, I have no doubt he would have trained multiple Group 1 winners for the lads as well.
I have long believed that “greatness” in sport is best measured by results relative to resources.
In football I have always wished Managers’ seasonal transfer and player wages budgets were published before calling one Manager better than another.
And in racing the aggregate yearling cost (or guide price for home breds) of a string relative to races and prize money won in any one season would be the acid test of a trainer.
Aidan (possibly the most misspelt name of a top practitioner in elite sport) O’Brien is undoubtedly a talented man, but “great?”
Give him, say, Jim Goldie’s string for a year and see how he gets on with them before deifying him.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"All about opinions as to who is a great. Most judges I’ve read have Vincent O’Brien as the best ever trainer which I agree with. Aidan and sir Henry next then Noel murless. That Aidan will set massive records is not in dispute. The point I was making was his three years before he went full time to coolmore. Staggering success for a man yet to reach thirty. I’m sure coolmore looked at May trainers to replace m v O’Brien but O’Brien amazing start put him front of the cue.
As for anybody being able to have loads of winners Michael Dickinson couldn’t do it having been dominant over jumps.
Can smaller trainers handle the pressure of big owners and expectation. Look at all the horses being transferred out of smaller yards recently. It’s a cut throat business.He is without doubt a brilliant trainer but he didn’t achieve that early success entirely from scratch. He married the reigning champion Irish NH trainer, moved into her yard, got her pregnant, Tippexed her name off the licence and wrote his own in
She had in turn taken over the yard from her father. Joint licences were not allowed then.You took the words out of my mouth greenasgrass. When he was champion, Irish racing was a different place anyway. Michael Hourigan was also champion in that era, and he certainly did it a much harder way – perhaps if you put him in Ballydoyle, he would now be setting records. I’m no fan of Hourigan, just an observation.
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