Since Aidan O'Brien toko over as trainer at Ballydoyle in 1996, this quiet perfectionist has come to dominate the horseracing world as few have done before, writes Roisin Ingle.
'I'M OVER THE moon," says Aidan O'Brien, a man not known for either overstatement or hyperbole, preparing to fly to a race meeting in Newmarket yesterday morning. He has just heard the news that developers of a controversial €100m waste treatment plant close to Ballydoyle stables in Co Tipperary, where he lives and trains champion race horses, have been refused permission by An Bord Pleanála to develop the plant.
"This would have destroyed Ballydoyle, it would have closed us down and ruined all the land in terms of raising horses," he says down the phone. "I am delighted for the community, I am delighted for all the staff. It means a future for all of us at Ballydoyle. Listen, it's absolutely marvellous."
According to the judgement, the plant would have been "incompatible with equine-related activities". Nobody knows that better than O'Brien who this year has been enjoying the fruits of his hard work with an astonishing winning streak. He doesn't drink, never has, so the win won't be celebrated with champagne at Newmarket. "Ah, listen I am delighted, this is marvellous, I can't put it into words," he says.
Earlier this week, it's business as usual at Ballydoyle, where the site of the proposed plant is visible through the trees. It's early morning at the stables. Wearing jeans, jacket and sunglasses O'Brien instructs his riders as they pass, heading up to the gallops.
He keeps it simple, as he does every session. No pressure. No raised voices: A nice steady, Keith. Steady, James. Steady, John. O'Brien's tone is respectful, calm and authoritative as he tells the riders, who have come here from stables around the world, exactly how to set the pace for the next canter. Just a nice steady, Seanie. Just a nice steady, Anthea. And just a nice steady, Morgan.
It doesn't take long for the first-time visitor to Ballydoyle to figure out that the work of this 38-year-old is about three things: people, horses and family. He doesn't forget a single name, of either a horse or a rider or a tacking assistant, which is something when you consider there are around 100 staff and 160 horses at Ballydoyle.
And family? Steady, Joseph, he says. This morning his fifteen-year-old son Joseph, an aspiring jockey, rides out on a horse called Love to Dance.
And steady, Sarah. His 13-year-old daughter Sarah, who wants to be a vet, rides Great Wall of China. Steady, Mikey. And just a nice steady, Yvonne. Give yourself a bit of room. His younger children Donnacha and Ana, it should be pointed out, are also quite handy on their ponies.
O'Brien works from his jeep. He says it is less distracting; "When you walk you have to concentrate on the physical activity of walking, just sitting in the car you can concentrate more on the horses."
In the earlier days back in the late 1990s, there was talk that O'Brien used to get physically ill on the gallops, the beautifully maintained training stretches which simulate parts of the flat racing tracks of Epsom and Ascot. He doesn't deny it exactly.
"There is always a lot of things going on emotionally when you are working, if you didn't have that it would mean you didn't care," he says. "But feeling sick doesn't make it happen." ("Make it happen" is O'Brien-speak for "win" or "winning", two words he doesn't use often, as though uttering them might tempt fate.)
"We do all in our power to make it happen. We do our best, and after that whatever will be will be, the main thing is we do our best. The pressure for us day in, day out is that we get results. So that everybody here is able to keep their jobs and have the life they have," he says.
As master of this world-renowned racehorse training facility, he has consistently produced champion after elite champion, making his billionaire Ballydoyle bosses very happy indeed.
Lately, though, rival trainers have watched in dismay as O'Brien's horses stepped up yet another gear, positioning Ballydoyle for what could be a world-record breaking year. There were those six winners at Ascot including wins for Henrythenavigator and Yeats, who took the Gold Cup for the third time on the trot, not to mention Frozen Fire's Irish Derby win at the Curragh.
So far this season horses trained by O'Brien and ridden by stable jockey Johnny Murtagh have taken 12 of the prestigious Group 1 titles in Britain and Ireland. And tomorrow, should Moonstone or one of his other runners in the Irish Oaks at the Curragh gallop to victory, it will mean a clean sweep of Irish classics for O'Brien and his team.
Some have already suggested that not only is O'Brien in a strong position to beat his personal best of 23 Group 1 wins, which he achieved back in 2001, but that he could break the world record of 25 wins set by American trainer Bobby Frankel three years ago.
Alright Shane. Okay Robert, good man. Okay Vicky. You happy? Okay good girl. The horses canter down the woodchip gallops and O'Brien gazes at them from the jeep, introducing the horses by name as they run. As he talks, he waves an elegant hand in a dainty circular motion, as though conducting an unseen orchestra somewhere out beyond the tranquil gallops and the white picket racecourse fence.
"That's Allesandro Volta now," he says, watching the horses intently. "He has a lead horse with him all the time you see, he doesn't like to work alone.
"And this is Septimus, he likes to work by himself, and this is Frozen Fire, he likes to follow. And the filly coming now is Listen, she likes to work by herself because when she works with others she does too much, you know, works too hard. Do you see her ears, the way they move, she is thinking away to herself there."
He is in the moment and it's mesmerising. Even if you don't know one end of a horse, or as O'Brien calls them "equine athletes" from the other. It's as though he is tuning in to the horses and riders using his own personal frequency.
"You see, the only difference between humans and horses is that horses can't talk back," he says. He means it. He tells you about their sensitivity, their emotional intelligence, about the facial expressions of the animals and what he looks for in their eyes.
"You can tell by the expressions whether they are happy or sad, a horse's ears can tell you an awful lot. When they are happy their ears are forward, when they are sad they are back," he says. "And when they are thinking their ears twitch forward and back, look at Mount Nelson there." He doesn't remember learning any of this, it just always came easy to him growing up on his father's Co Wexford farm, his father instilling a quiet confidence in the son he knew had something special.
He says the animals have personalities. "If you don't find out what that personality is and treat them as individuals, then you won't discover what makes them tick and you won't get the best out of them," he says. "Listen, it's just like humans. You could be working with a fella for a long time and never know what he is thinking and so never get the best out of him. Horses are the same. If you understand them, get them on that road where they are enjoying themselves, then any amount of improvement will come".
After the second canter the horses file past the jeep once more so O'Brien can gently probe each rider about the run. O'Brien talks to them in his slow lyrical lilt: Okay Faisal? Okay James? Okay Kaname? Okay Sarah? Okay Abby? Alright Brendan? And the riders answer, Okay or good or happy but mostly it's Okay.
So how does he actually learn anything from this exchange?
"Usually everybody's 'okay' means something different," he says. "You get to know them well and you know by the way they would say it that maybe actually they weren't okay and you go around and talk to everyone in the evening and you find out there is some kind of issue. The feedback from riders is massively important".
THE GRAND TOUR OF Ballydoyle, including the gallops, the stables and the horse spa complete with sauna, bubble bath and swimming pool, is given by O'Brien's wife, Anne-Marie, a former part-time model and champion National Hunt trainer.
The couple, both accomplished jockeys, met just before a race in Galway. "I had a horse at home in Co Kilkenny who was difficult to turn and I saw this fella with a ring bit and asked him where I could get one," she smiles. The fella with the ring bit was O'Brien. And they carried on from there.
At first they worked together, training National Hunt horses, but after they married he took over his wife's licence. In 1996, John Magnier chose O'Brien as the natural successor to the legendary Ballydoyle trainer MV O'Brien - no relation to Aidan. It's funny the way things go. When O'Brien was 17 he had applied for a job at Coolmore as a stud groom but was turned down. "I suppose I was a bit young at the time, I got in eventually, though," he smiles.
Family life revolves around Ballydoyle, the horses, their ten ponies and 17 dogs. Joseph is a member of the Irish pony eventing team and will compete with them in Switzerland in a couple of weeks.
"It's our professional life, our family life, our social life, it's everything. We'd be very boring dinner party companions," laughs Anne-Marie. Later, her husband confesses that "one afternoon we got married and the next day we went racing at the Curragh". He manages to look a little sheepish about this distinct absence of a honeymoon from his schedule that year.
The attention to detail at Ballydoyle, insisted on by O'Brien and embraced by the loyal staff, many of whom live with their families on site, is unrelenting. O'Brien himself likes order in the home, his toothbrush left pointing in a specific direction before he goes to bed at night.
He is just as meticulous with his equine charges. When you hear about the precautions taken at Ballydoyle to protect the delicate respiratory system of the horses, you can understand why a waste treatment plant, with smoke-belching chimneys, posed such a threat that O'Brien had threatened to leave Ballydoyle if it was built.
The finest quality straw, used as bedding in the stables, is shaken outside to eliminate the possibility of the horses ingesting dust. The hay is blown dry until it reaches a specific moisture content.
Elsewhere, state of the art technology is used to enhance training. The horses wear heart monitors and GPS technology measures their speed during training. Every training session is videoed and all the jockeys' comments are collected after each session. No short cuts and nothing is left to chance.
At the Giant's Causeway yard - named after the O'Brien-trained champion thoroughbred - the stables have their own individual paddocks, small back yards for the horses to roam. There are infrared lamps in case the horses get cold and hospital-quality ionisers to keep the air quality pure.
Radio chat shows are played into stables, because O'Brien has discovered the horses are stimulated by the contrast between chat and song. This morning Ray D'Arcy blasts out around the yard.
Out on the gallops, an army of around 15 men spend their days replacing the turf kicked out by the horses and sowing fresh grass seeds. "It's one of the most important jobs here," says Anne-Marie. "It's a team effort, everybody's contribution is valuable."
Especially hers. O'Brien values his wife's input so highly that if she can't be at a track, she speaks to him on the phone during a race. The place is a luxury, no expense spared, a resort for elite horses, all bankrolled by the wealthy owners of Ballydoyle. It's been said that both the constant stream of ready cash and the nearby resource of Coolmore Stud gives O'Brien an unfair advantage over other trainers. At Godfrey's Farm seven miles away, the offspring of champions past and present, are produced for Ballydoyle.
General manager of Coolmore Stud Christy Grassick brings you to see the full brother of Henrythenavigator who is being "raised and grazed" here in rich paddocks and in the stables he points out the last foals sired by Sadler's Wells.
"A trainer can have the best product, the best of everything and still spend years and millions trying to produce even one top-level winner," says Grassick. "I suppose we all depend on having our breeding right but when it comes to Aidan it's down to his pure, natural ability. He understands the horses, he seems to get inside their heads. We give him the raw product but he works out the best way to manage everything and deliver the results."
O'Brien never backs his own horses, or any horses for that matter. "Gambling is a form of fun for people who can afford to do it," he says. "It's only always your opinion bet against the bookies' opinion, that this thing is going to happen."
"Here at Ballydoyle we do our best for it to happen, and we'd be as straight and as honest and let everybody make up their own mind. I believe God has the power to decide whether it's going to happen or not, so if it's not meant to happen it's not going to happen, but we've done our best to make it happen." Out on the gallops, O'Brien drives the jeep alongside his son who is riding Sail, a "lovely filly" says O'Brien. He says she's been out of sorts lately and needs to be ridden alone on the grass. O'Brien instructs his son via a walkie talkie, Joseph listens to his father's voice on headphones as he gallops along on Sail.
"As you go, Joseph, you can just gradually go a little bit quicker, you will feel your way yourself," says father to son. Afterwards O'Brien leans through the jeep window. "Okay, Joseph?" he says. "Very good," says Joseph. "She's getting better every day".
"Well done Joseph, thanks," says his father.
It's like Christy Grassick says, it comes down to breeding. In the lean years, back on the Co Wexford farm in the townland of Killegney where the trainer grew up, Aidan O'Brien's father Denis and his mother Anastasia made sacrifices to ensure they could keep horses for him to train. At school O'Brien struggled, could barely remember a few lines written down in a text book. "I hated it," he says. But that was another funny thing. He remembered every single thing about horses. "Anything about horses just seemed to stick," he says.
O'Brien is in a reflective mood. His father has not been well lately.
"He's a grand age and he's very frail," says O'Brien. He's never told anyone this before but he remembers his father's faith in him growing up. It turns out Denis O'Brien predicted his son's success as a trainer back when Aidan was just a boy with a natural affinity with the horses on the farm. Denis O'Brien always had a deep conviction that his son would one day produce champions and he told his son this at every opportunity.
"I've never said it before to anyone, but that's the kind of man he is. He would want you to believe in yourself, to see that you could do anything," he says. "He would have taught me everything all the way along and made me believe in myself and filled me with confidence, always."
He also remembers his mother telling him to always be straight and honest and to do his best, advice which has served him well. "I could never pay them back," he says.
But of course he does, every day. By passing on that confidence, excellence and the pursuit of perfection to people and to horses and to family. By doing what he was born to do. By making good his father's prediction. By always doing his best.
Steady, Joseph. Steady, Sarah. Just a nice steady, Seanie. Steady Morgan. It's about the people, the horses, the family. With the O'Briens it always will be, whatever garlands the coming seasons will surely bring.
