Had the genetic lottery come up with a different result 23 years ago, Joseph O’Brien might be 5ft 9in tall and looking forward to the ride on Idaho, the odds-on favourite, in Saturday’s St Leger. Instead, and at an age when many young men are still wondering what to do with their lives, O’Brien emerged from retirement here on Wednesday to record what will probably be the final winner of a brief but hugely successful career in the saddle.
O’Brien’s pedigree gave him the chance to ride some of the most impeccably bred bloodstock in the business, but he was already tall and still growing during his time as the main jockey at Ballydoyle for his father, Aidan. Two Derby victories, on Camelot (2012) and Australia (2014), were among the highlights in a record that included almost three dozen wins at Group or Grade One level, while his association with St Nicholas Abbey yielded wins in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs and the Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan.
O’Brien’s ride on Phosphorescence in the annual Leger Legends race in aid of racing charities was his first in 2016. His breathlessness afterwards made it plain that it is also likely to be his last. O’Brien had just executed a perfectly judged front-running success on the 7-1 chance, who was racing for the first time since July 2015, but he conceded that his legs were like jelly and that “if I can get back to the weighing room after that, I’ve done well”.
O’Brien won four British Classics in his short career, two more than Richard Hughes, the champion jockey in 2012, 2013 and 2014, who retired last summer at the age of 42 after nearly three decades in the saddle. O’Brien was granted a trainer’s licence in early June and now oversees a mixed string of around 70 horses at Owning Hill in County Kilkenny, the family-owned stable his parents left in 1995 to move to Ballydoyle.
He ruled becoming a regular in the race in years to come, saying: “I’m blowing quite a bit. I don’t ride out too much at home now because we have a big string of horses and you can’t ride out with them and see everything.
“It’s great craic and it’s nice that he won, but it’s all about supporting a good cause and not taking it too seriously. They always say you should finish on a high note.
“He tested my fitness a little bit but he tried when it mattered. In fairness to George [Scott, the trainer of Phosphorescence], he said that if the horse runs like he works then he has a good chance and he was right.
“He told me to keep it simple and there’s no simpler way to win than from the front.”
O’Brien’s Classic wins included Leading Light’s success for his father in the St Leger in 2013, a year after the desperate disappointment of Camelot’s failure to complete the first Triple Crown for 32 years in the same race. That was one of Aidan O’Brien’s four victories in the race in the past 15 years and Idaho, the Great Voltigeur Stakes winner, is an ever shorter favourite to give him his fifth after Red Verdon was ruled out on Wednesday.
Idaho is now no better than 4-6 for the Leger after Ed Dunlop, Red Verdon’s trainer, conceded defeat in his attempts to get his colt to the stalls for the season’s final Classic. Muntahaa, who won a handicap at Chester from a mark of 108 in August, is next in the list on 9-2, while Housesofparliament, another runner for Ballydoyle, is 7-1.
Silvestre de Sousa made further progress in the Flat jockeys’ title race when Priceless took the Listed Scarbrough Stakes by three-quarters of a length from Thesme. Clive Cox, the filly’s trainer, does not expect her to run again this year but hopes that she will have “a proper sprinting campaign” if she stays in training in 2017. Thesme, meanwhile, could run in the Group One Prix de l’Abbaye on Arc day at Chantilly in October, but only if the ground is fast as Nigel Tinkler’s filly has exceptional speed but struggles to get home, even at five furlongs.
De Sousa was out of luck on the remainder of the card and finished the afternoon one winner behind Jim Crowley, who had five booked rides on the evening card at Kempton Park.
