Joseph O’Brien made a spectacular start to his training career when sending out four winners from seven runners on Monday, his first day with a licence. The 23-year-old, a Derby-winning jockey who became too heavy to continue in the saddle, beat his famous father, Aidan, when scoring with his very first runner, Justice Frederick at Gowran.
The two-year-old sweated up in the preliminaries and drifted to odds of 6-4 but finished strongly to repel the challenge of the favourite, Leo Minor, from the powerful Ballydoyle stable of O’Brien Sr.
Justice Frederick will now give the younger man a real chance of Royal Ascot success next week when he lines up in the Chesham.
O’Brien Jr later trained the winners of a Gowran handicap and two races at Listowel, a maiden hurdle and a bumper. The bumper success was achieved by the promising Oathkeeper, carrying the colours of JP McManus, who is expected to be the new trainer’s principal supporter.
“Straight away, I got put in my place,” said O’Brien Sr, paying tribute to the start made by his eldest son in his new career. “Joseph loves it. He loved riding but it was tough for him for a long time; doing nine stone every morning was very hard. He’s a big man now, he’s well over 11 stone and he doesn’t look heavy.
“No one will get more pleasure than me, but I’ll have to keep my eye on the ball now! It has been an incredible day and how can you improve on that?”
