Donn McClean: The Derby and the name O’Brien

By Donn McClean

The Epsom Derby roll of honour is peppered with O’Brien.

From Vincent’s first, Larkspur in 1962, through Vincent’s second, third, fourth fifth and sixth, the iconic ones, Sir Ivor and Nijinsky and Roberto and The Minstrel and Golden Fleece, to El Gran Senor, who was beaten by the bob of a head and the width of a cigarette paper, and just about every other cliché you care to cite.

That defeat did not stop the O’Brien march, however, with Vincent’s son David the hero/villain in the El Gran Senor drama, fielding, as he did, Secreto, who denied the Guineas winner in one of the most extraordinary Derby finishes of modern times.

Some 16 years flowed under the bridge after Secreto with no Irish-trained Derby winner before the John Oxx-trained Sinndar landed the 2000 renewal. Then the O’Brien name was etched on the trophy again, as Aidan landed back-to-back runnings in 2001 and 2002, and followed up with his 2012-2013-2014 hat-trick, Camelot and Ruler Of The World and Australia, two of them ridden by Joseph, another O’Brien.

And now look: 20 horses left in the 2017 Epsom Derby, and eight of them carry the O’Brien name in the trainer’s column.

Cliffs Of Moher has been the shortest price of the octet since it was confirmed that the 2000 Guineas winner Churchill was taking the Gleneagles/Rock Of Gibraltar/Henrythenavigator path from the Guineas at Newmarket to the Guineas at The Curragh, as opposed to the Camelot route from Newmarket to Epsom.

The Galileo colt was impressive in winning his maiden at Leopardstown last October, and he got the job done on his debut this season in the Dee Stakes at Chester.

He beat Bay Of Poets by about the same distance as the distance by which Cracksman and Permian had beaten him in the Epsom Derby Trial, but his position at the top of the Derby market is due more to the underlying understanding that there is plenty more to come.

Of course, there is probably more to come from just about every Ballydoyle Derby contender than what they have produced during the earlier throes of the season. Indeed, there is probably more to come from the majority of Derby contenders. Whatever wins Saturday’s race will probably have to put up a career-best to do so. That is what makes the Derby outcome so difficult to predict.

But Cliffs Of Moher more than most. That was the sense before the Dee Stakes, and that sense has not changed since.

The latest Ballydoyle Derby market springer is Capri. Another Galileo colt, he had plenty of racing last season, he beat Rekindling in a maiden at the Galway Festival, he beat Yucatan in the Group 2 Beresford Stakes, and he rounded off his two-year-old campaign by finishing third behind Waldgeist and Best Solution in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud at, well, Saint-Cloud last October, when he had Douglas Macarthur and Wings Of Eagles and Rekindling behind him.

Capri has been beaten in both his races this season though, in the Ballysax Stakes and the Derrinstown. Those two races are both good trials, even if the Derrinstown hasn’t produced the Derby winner since the Sinndar-Galileo-High Chaparral rat-a-tat-tat of 2000-2001-2002. The Ballysax did produce those three Derby winners, and it also produced Harzand last year, who skipped the Derrinstown and went straight to Epsom.

Of the nine Irish-trained Derby winners since the turn of the millennium, three ran in the Derrinstown, but four ran in the Ballysax and four ran in the 2000 Guineas.

Capri’s profile is not the quintessential profile of a Derby winner: seven runs, three wins, four defeats. That said, you cannot ignore his new-found market strength, and this before Ryan Moore has made his decision public.

Moore’s decision is crucial, not only because his chosen ride will be the de facto Ballydoyle number one, but also because that horse will have Moore’s assistance as he navigates his way around Epsom’s contours.

It is not a given, mind you, that the Ballydoyle number one will definitely do best of the Ballydoyle contingent. O’Brien has run more than one horse in the Derby every year for the last decade, and five times the stable number one has finished behind at least one of his stable companions.  

And you can make cogent cases for the other Ballydoyle contenders this year. Venice Beach, a half-brother to Danedream, won the Chester Vase, the race that Ruler Of The World won as a prelude to his Derby victory in 2013. Wings Of Eagles was second to Venice Beach in that Chester Vase after enduring a less-than-ideal passage.  

Douglas Macarthur, who is out of a half-sister to New Approach, won the Derrinstown. He wasn’t overly impressive in winning it, but he dug deep when he needed to, to fend off his two stable companions Yucatan and Capri and, runner-up to Rekindling in the Ballysax Stakes, you have to think that the extra two furlongs will bring about further improvement.

As well as that, six of the seven Ballydoyle horses are by O’Brien’s first Derby winner Galileo, and that is always a positive, especially in the context of the Derby.

These are improving three-year-olds, athletic adolescents, the majority of whom have yet to race over a mile and a half. It is difficult to ascertain their base rate of progression, and you can’t know for sure by how much they will improve – if at all – for the extra distance.

The eighth O’Brien contender this year is Rekindling, trained by Aidan’s son Joseph, a dual Derby-winning rider.

The High Chaparral colt shaped like this year’s Harzand at the start of the season, winner of the Ballysax Stakes who skipped the Derrinstown. He could only finish fourth in the Dante, however, and that is obviously not a positive. Workforce remains the only horse to get beaten in the Dante who then stepped forward and won the Derby.

We may not have seen the real Rekindling in the Dante though. He seemed to get caught out when they quickened early in the home straight before staying on through traffic to finish fourth, just over three lengths behind the winner Permian.

He was beaten by Capri in that Galway maiden last year, and he was well beaten in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud on his final run of the season, but he looked very good in winning the Ballysax on his debut this season when most of the racing world’s attention was focused on the Grand National.

That form is solid, with the second, third and fourth in the Ballysax, Douglas Macarthur, Yucatan and Capri, respectively filling the first three places in the Derrinstown four weeks later.  

It is a big enough concession, but forgive him his Dante run, and Rekindling is a player. And wouldn’t it be strange, 33 years on from Secreto/El Gran Senor, to see another O’Brien father/son duel through the final furlong.

For more from Donn McClean, visit his website