There’s a brief hiatus in Europe’s Group One schedule until Haydock’s Betfair Sprint Cup, which could allow Aidan O’Brien gather momentum towards a new top-flight world record.
Ireland’s perennial champion trainer set a global benchmark in 2017 when scooping an unprecedented 28 Group/Grade One races. It took in victories in races with the sport’s highest classification from Europe to the US. Highland Reel then set the new mark in the Hong Kong Vase in December of that year.
That smashed the previous mark of 25, set in Grade One races by the legendary American trainer Bobby Frankel. It also prompted strong suggestions that the new figure might never be threatened. Eight years later and that’s starting to look presumptive.
In 2017, O’Brien reached this point of the year on 14 Group One winners. This season he is already on 15 and might ruefully consider it could have been even more. Gstaad was narrowly beaten in Sunday’s Prix Morny at Deauville. On the same card Bedtime Story got no luck in running when fifth in the Prix Jean Romanet.
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Whistlejacket would be an outsider if lining up in the Haydock Sprint Cup on Saturday week. However, the following day’s Arc Trials meeting at Longchamp includes the Prix Vermeille and the Prix Du Moulin. O’Brien has won the Moulin twice before. He also won the Vermeille with Warm Heart two years ago.
All of it takes place ahead of the following week’s Irish Champions Festival, with six Group One prizes up for grabs, and the Doncaster St Leger. It means O’Brien could make plenty hay while the early autumn sun shines.
His strength in depth in the staying division in particular means Scandinavia is favourite for Leger glory at Doncaster while the dual-Derby hero Lambourn looks like being a spectacular second string. He was only fifth in last week’s Great Voltigeur at York.
“The Voltigeur was only a sprint down the straight and was a waste of a race really. They only hacked and it was just a day at the races,” O’Brien has reported. “It is very possible that he will go for the St Leger. He didn’t even blow after the race. We just needed to get a race into him.”
Stay True is another Leger possible from Ballydoyle although the biggest local threat at Doncaster could come from Lazy Griff, the horse that has come up short three times against Lambourn this season. His trainer Charlie Johnston is one of those hoping the sun stops shining soon.
“Doncaster is coming round quick, it’s only 19 days – not that we’re counting them down," said Johnston. “All is good apart from the weather and surely this summer will end at some point and the rain will come because we will need it.
“The Voltigeur was a fairly easy watch for us, nothing too scary came out of that and I think if we can get a bit of ease in the ground then we will be really looking forward to Doncaster.
“Even before the Voltigeur, I knew where we stood with Lambourn and I could see reasons why we could reverse that scoreline up in distance and on slower ground.
“We have no idea where we stand with Scandinavia and we’re under no illusions that he looks to set a high bar. But I do think we’re rightfully second-favourite now and we’re looking forward to that challenge.”
O’Brien has won the world’s oldest Classic eight times, a figure substantially shy of the dozen successes he has notched in Leopardstown’s €1.25 million Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, the highlight of Ireland’s flat racing showpiece.
Delacroix is set to renew rivalry with Ombudsman in an eagerly anticipated clash between the pair. O’Brien’s colt beat his Godolphin rival with a devastating late burst in the Eclipse before being forced to settle for second behind him in last week’s Juddmonte at York.
“He’s good, hopefully it will be back to Leopardstown and hopefully John [Gosden] and Sheikh Mohammed will come [with Ombudsman]; we’ll have something to look forward to then. York was just a Mickey Mouse race really,” O’Brien commented.
