Speed is his thing
Robin Oakley
Not so long ago, after Golan's burst of speed took him from last to first in the 2,000 Guineas, we were talking of him as a potential world-beater. The only question was whether a horse with that much speed could last the Derby distance. Golan did last the distance, and lasted it well. But he was beaten out of sight by Galileo, who truly could be one of the horses of the decade. In. last week's column, before selecting Perfect Sunday, who finished sixth, I did say with what turned out to be the understatement of the year, that there was a case to be made for Galileo (and I did give you Imagine as the winner of the Oaks). I only wish I could have had a whisper beforehand of what the 31-year-old genius Aidan O'Brien was ready to tell us after the Derby. In that soft-spoken, hesitant voice of his he declared that when he gave Galileo his first canter as a two-yearold the horse was already good enough to win any six-furlong maiden race you cared to put him in.
After his last run Galileo had improved in his next piece of work by an incredible 15-18 lengths, said the young master of Ballydoyle. 'It was very hard to believe that he was doing what he was doing. I have never seen a horse do that and show that kind of speed.' So good was Galileo at home that they thought the other horses must be wrong. Although there now seems to have been a change of heart from the Coolmore team, who have decided to go for the Irish Derby after all, O'Brien even suggested initially after the Derby victory that we might see Galileo running over a mile or a mile and a quarter in future rather than the Derby distance of a mile and a half. He explained: 'Speed is his thing. He just finds it very easy to go very fast.'
Clearly he does. Derby-winning jockey Mick Kinane complained that the early pace of the race was slow and Galileo was unchallenged at the end of the race, and yet this year's winner ran the second fastest Derby time ever. 'You wouldn't want to pick him up,' Kinane said. 'He just took off.' When we asked Aidan, with an American campaign in mind, if Galileo would handle a dirt track, he replied, 'This one could gallop on water.' No wonder that coowner Michael Tabor, asked if he had had a bit on the horse, replied, 'Several times — at prices from 7-1 down'. And when he talks about 'a bit' it probably means he won enough to buy a lump of Mayfair.
I could have listened to Aidan O'Brien and the Coolmore team for hours, and the most striking thing about the brilliant young trainer, who has now taken the Irish 1.000 and 2,000 Guineas this season plus the Oaks and Derby double, is his incredible and entirely genuine modesty. Ask him how he does it and he immediately gives all the credit to a 'wonderful' stable staff who look after the horses and 'don't let me interfere too much'. But is there no contribution from him, he was pressed? No, not really, it's just that he is lucky enough to get some very well-bred horses, he said.
Well maybe in that way he does have the luck of the Irish. But that is not why he trains so many winners. Just watch him with his horses in the paddock, talking gently to them, brushing over their quarters, and you can see that this is a magical man with some kind of special affinity with the animals in his charge. Look back over O'Brien's career and there are milestones all the way which would have satisfied others in a lifetime of training. In 1993-94, in his first season training, Istabraq's handler was champion jumps trainer in Ireland, finding time too to be the champion amateur rider. The next year, his first at Ballydoyle, he set an Irish record of 176 flat and jumping wins, breaking the record the next year with 185. When he won the Irish 2,000 this year with Black Minnaloushe he had the second and third as well. He didn't do quite so well in the 1,000 Guineas, only managing third and fourth to go with Imagine's victory.
Where is it all going to end and what is it going to do to the old image of the Irish racing man as roaring boy? Last year it was the quiet, scholarly John Oxx who took the Derby with the Aga Khan's Sinndar, this year it was the gentle O'Brien with the pale, blinking, look of the school swot. As for the Coolmore operation, they go from
strength to strength. Last year they had the brave and consistent Giant's Causeway. Now their great sire Sadler's Wells has produced a long overdue Derby winner too. Said John Magnier, sounding a little miffed that anybody had ever doubted the prospect: 'He's had five Oaks winners and five Oaks seconds to go with the five seconds in the Derby. I don't know what he'll do when they start to act around here.'
Amen to that. And let me, declaring an interest as a new member of Epsom's Race Committee, note one other big winner too. There were 150,000 people on the Downs this year for Europe's richest race. The Derby is back in all its glory as one of the biggest draws in the sporting calendar. Let nobody say again that the supreme test of the three-year-old thoroughbred doesn't work as a Saturday race.
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