I couldn't let the passing of Vincent O'Brien go by without a comment or three.
Probably the most poignant memory of any racing book I've read would have to be the piece in the 'Horsetrader' by Nick Robinson when one of the syndicate comprising Sangster, Magnier etc asks in the Keeneland bar where Vincent had disappeared too and the answer came back that he had gone back to look at the little Northern Dancer colt (The Ministrel). Further proded by the enquirer - whom must have had one too many Jamisons - if in fact that meant Vincent liked the colt, to which the comment came back "Like him, he bloody loves him".
O'Brien would leave no stone unturned in his search for thoroughbred perfection. A horrible cliche but someone light years ahead of their time.
Remarkedly O'Brien never had a string of more than 50 horses in work and often operated at around the 40 mark. Not for him the large satellite operations we see today. Vincent believed in care and attention and within reason this did not extend to delegation.
His Ballydoyle operation were the first to pad their boxes and lay straight gallops to take unnecssary pressure of a young horses legs.
But above all else O'Brien was a horse psychologist extraodinaire . Someone who got inside his 'flocks' minds and knew his horses better than they knew themselves. Some of the greats he trained such as Nijinsky and Alleged had more quirks than Michael Jackson yet he co erced them to become legends of the turf. I wonder though how he would have felt about trying to domesticate lions and tigers..?
About ten years ago I found myself at a wedding seated next to an elderly chap. Now having gone to a few weddings in my time as a single bloke I was well used to a bit of matchmaking. Looking around this particular wedding at a number of pretty single females, I begun to think pretty critically of my cousin whose wedding it was; that was before I discovered the elderly chap just happened to be Vincent O'Briens brother in law..
For the next three hours I got a wonderful insight into the life of one of the true greats, his love of nature, order and engineering.
Thank you Aunty Jill.
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JD, will we see his like again? That ex copper - not that mate of yours, who amazingly still has a job - has done a handy job for the arabbs?
ReplyDeleteThe answer to you question. Maybe we have, in Aidan O'Brien - funnily enough no relation.
ReplyDeleteBut in reality, probably no. The horse world like everything is so very different from 30 years ago. There is not the need to be proficient like Vincent was, there s someone in the backroom who can do that stuff.
Vincent was a ground breaker, these people are rarer than a politican without an expense card.
Talking about politicians and commenting about people lucky to have jobs, if this is who I think it is you could count yourself lucky, judging the Jonathon Hunt imprsonation I saw from you when I last saw you.
No disrespect to Bin Surror who is obviously possessed of many skills but the diffrence between him and O'Brien is night and day.