Steve Jones: “The Ascot King George field this weekend is worrying for racing”

SPORTING excellence should be admired not envied.

There’s nothing better to see a true great in full flow whether it be a Lara, Messi, Woods or Federer.

Aidan O’Brien has already shown he deserves to join those legends of sport and one can only admire how he has become the most powerful Flat trainer in the world.

His success since he started training mostly jumpers in 1993 has been quite astonishing. Some of the greatest horses to grace the turf have helped him rack up 38 British Classics to go with the 44 in his native Ireland.

Serpentine’s surprise victory in last month’s Derby was a record eighth success for O’Brien in the Epsom Classic and it’s now the norm to expect half a dozen runners from his Ballydoyle stables line up in the top Group 1 races.

Although he had six runners in the Derby this year there was plenty of opposition. The front two in the betting – Kameko and English King – were trained by Andrew Balding and Ed Walker respectively.

This weekend’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes throws a more worrying light on the situation.

It's Gosden v O'Brien – Enable heads eight entries for Saturday's King George at Ascot pic.twitter.com/EXgRQJaJ3R

— PA Racing (@PAracing) July 20, 2020

O’Brien is responsible for six of the eight possible with only John Gosden’s pair Enable and Fanny Logan standing in opposition in what is historically the summer highlight for the best middle distance horses.

The prestigious Ascot prize looks likely to attract the smallest field since 2011 when only five runners went to post for the race won by Nathaniel as O’Brien’s sextet will be whittled down.

All six possibles are also entered in Sunday’s Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh. The shake up in this year’s Covid disrupted fixture list has, unfortunately, placed the 1m2f Group 1 prize a day after the King George and has attracted 21 runners.

Predictably the lion’s share of the entries, 10 in total, are from O’Brien’s stable. Another four are trained by his son Joseph and, it seems, only a matter of time before O’Brien’s younger son Donnacha joins his father and brother as a regular on Flat racing’s biggest days.

At the age of just 21 – he turned 22 this week – Donnacha landed his first Classic when Fancy Blue won the French Oaks three weeks ago this weekend.

Having become too heavy to continue as a jockey he only sent out his first runner on racing’s resumption from the enforced lockdown. Fancy Blue’s Prix de Diane victory was only his fourth winner.

Every father would want to give his children a leg-up the ladder but the O’Brien boys have had nothing short of a jet-propelled boost to the top rung.

It raises the prospect that, in the not too distant future, the top three trainers in Irish Flat racing could all come from the same family and backed by the same all-powerful Coolmore operation.

That cannot be healthy for a country that, despite it’s size, has for years stood toe-to-toe with the best in world racing with a depth of trainers battling it out for the top prizes in Ireland and around the world.

Aidan looks certain to win the Irish Flat trainers’ title for the 23rd time and Joseph currently sits in second place ahead of Jessica Harrington and Ger Lyons.

That’s why it was good for Irish racing that Lyons landed the Irish Oaks with Even So to add to Siskin’s victory in the Irish 2000 Guineas.

It was the first time since Paddy Mullins triumphed with Vintage Tipple in 2003 that an Irish-based trainer, other than O'Brien, had won the Curragh fillies’ Classic in a race dominated by British raiders in recent years.

But even when there’s a welcome change from the norm there is a constant. Even So raced in the all-pink second colours of John Magnier as joint-owner with Paul Shanahan.

It was further proof how powerful the Coolmore breeding operation, fuelled by super stallion Galileo, had become.

Even if Galileo, the first of O’Brien’s four King George winners, did suffer from erectile dysfunction in the near future the kingdom is unlikely to be under threat.

Camelot, sire of Even So, is one of a number of Classic winners waiting in the wings to take over from the ageing champion stallion.

This is a domination that is not going to end any time soon. With a competitive nature essential to the character and funding of racing the O’Brien/Coolmore success story in Ireland is one to be admired and feared in equal measure.