THERE MIGHT be a temporary lull in Group One action but bookmakers reckon the resumption of top-flight action could be marked by a serious attempt by Aidan O’Brien to break Bobby Frankel’s world-record tally of 25 Group One winners before the end of the year.
The great American trainer, after whom the world’s highest rated horse is named, scored his 25 wins in 2003, a total that O’Brien fell two short of in 2008.
However, a sparkling start to the 2012 campaign has put Ireland’s champion trainer in prime position to break the record.
Europe’s next Group 1 prize is Sunday’s €1 million Prix De Diane, the French Oaks, in which the O’Brien trained Up, a fast-finishing runner-up to Beauty Parlour in the French 1,000 Guineas last month, could return to France to try and reverse the form.
After that the Royal Ascot bonanza begins with Fame And Glory who is a hot-favourite to retain his Gold Cup crown and So You Think, fancied to go one better than last year in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes. It is, therefore, no surprise to see O’Brien an odds-on favourite in ante-post betting to be crowned leading trainer at Royal Ascot, while his son Joseph is a 6 to 4 market-leader with Hills to be the top jockey.
But it was the longer-term view that interested Paddy Power yesterday, with the firm going 5to 2 about O’Brien beating the Frankel figure and 8 to 1 about the Irishman hitting 30 Group 1 winners. “He’s on track for the record . . . and is fairly mopping up the classics,” said Paddy Power.
O’Brien’s dominance of the British classics this year has helped him to seven Group One victories already, one more than at the same stage in 2008, and three more than when scoring 20 top-flight successes last year.
The Ballydoyle trainer has won every classic in Britain and Ireland but has failed to hit the mark in the French Oaks, a race that this year is likely to be dominated in the build-up by the unbeaten superstar Beauty Parlour.
However, Up ran the daughter of Japanese sire Deep Impact to a length at Longchamp and afterwards O’Brien reported: “She had a bad draw and ran a great race. She can step up in trip.”
The O’Brien team were unlucky in the French Derby when Imperial Monarch had a nightmare run and finished out of the money.
It is 14 years since Pat Flynn endured a horrible day at Royal Ascot when his Cheltenham festival heroine French Ballerina sustained a fatal injury in the Gold Cup but the Co Waterford trainer is preparing for a return.
His Scots Gaelic won at Fairyhouse last Wednesday and is on course for a crack at the Ascot Stakes.
“He won over a mile-and-a-half at Fairyhouse and we’re going for the Ascot Stakes over two and a hal,” he said yesterday.
