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From Cheltenham to Royal Ascot, how the Green Team became a winning machine

This year's Irish raiders are looking to build on a record-breaking 2023 next week in Berkshire

Tuesday, 11 June 2024
From Cheltenham to Royal Ascot, how the Green Team became a winning machine

O'Brien's Joseph, Aidan and Donnacha were all in the Winners' Enclosure last year

When you come to Royal Ascot and have a winner, it’s just such a privilege - Aidan O'Brien

If you thought Cheltenham was the only corner of a foreign field forever Ireland, then think again, writes James Toney.

The green team again scored gold, silver and bronze with gleeful abandon at jump racing’s Olympics in the early days of spring and they’ve become equally accomplished raiders at the highlight of the summer social season too.

Royal Ascot is still a sometimes baffling occasion of pomp and circumstance, with outfits straight from the wardrobe department of Bridgerton, but if the Festival in March was all about Willie Mullins and his trusty trilby, then June is the time for Aidan O'Brien and his top hat.

Twelve months ago, eight Irish trainers won a record 12 races across the five days of the meeting, brilliantly bettering the previous best of ten victories in 2016.

The Master of Ballydoyle’s four wins secured him the top trainer title for the 12th time in 17 years, but it wasn’t just the O’Brien show, though there was a first Royal Ascot winner for son Donnacha and two more for his brother Joseph.

Mullins won his ninth Royal Ascot race with wily old jumps campaigner Vauban while Co. Westmeath trainer Adrian Murray gatecrashed the establishment with an eye-watering 150-1 winner, not bad for a trainer who then admitted he’d fallen into racing ‘by accident’.

Elsewhere, there were wins for Jessica Harrington, her fourth, Gavin Cromwell, his second, and the evergreen Dermot Weld, almost 50 years to the day since he first returned to the most regal winners' enclosure in sport.

There is remarkable strength in depth in Irish racing, exactly 30 years from the last time the pick of their trainers travelled for their royal audience and failed to register a single winner.

And it's not just the trainers. Champion Jockey Colin Keane scored his first success at the meeting 12 months ago, while there was also joy in the saddle for Rossa Ryan, Oisin Murphy, Wayne Lordan, Gary Carroll, Chris Hayes, Neil Callan, and PJ McDonald.

There are many famous double acts at Royal Ascot; you can't have tails without a top hat in a place where the bywords are tradition and elegance.

However, is there a greater Ascot combination than Aidan and Ryan Moore?

Moore was just 28 when he partnered with O'Brien to win their first Royal Ascot race together, Power claiming the Coventry Stakes in 2011.

Since then, there has not been a dominating act like them, quite the claim in a sporting event whose sepia-tinted history dates back to the 18th century. Of O'Brien's last 42 winners, all but five have been ridden by Moore, their fates and fortune completely intertwined.

Sometimes it's like they are in a race with each other. O'Brien's 85 Ascot wins put him three clear of Sir Michael Stoute in the list of all-time training greats, while Moore, with 79 wins, is just two behind Frankie Dettori in the currently active jockey rankings, standings he will surely top in the days ahead.

Moore - who has been top jockey in ten of the last 14 years - found another level 12 months ago, riding in all 35 races across five days, seven more than the next busiest rider. Not only did he ride six winners but also eight seconds, two thirds, and five fourths.

"I'm just very fortunate to ride with the best team and work with the best people in the world," said Moore.

"It's such an honour to get the support of Ballydoyle and Coolmore, it's always a team effort, they do all the hard work, and I just do the last little bit, hopefully getting the horse over the line.

"Aidan likes to tell me that I'm a pessimist, but I think we've got a great team of horses right now.

"When I started, the aim was to ride in the best races on the best horses. That’s what it really is always about, and I'm very lucky I get to live that dream."

O'Brien is equally quick to deflect praise and give credit to those toiling away from the glare of the spotlight.

Even if, as he insists, O'Brien does not dwell on the past, last year's Royal Ascot was from a particularly special vintage.

"It was very special for the two lads [Joseph and Donnacha] to have winners as well," he said.

"We know how difficult it is – we came here a lot of years with a lot of horses and didn’t have any winners. It’s very, very competitive, fiercely competitive. When you come to Royal Ascot and have a winner, it’s just such a privilege.

"There are so many people that go into making it happen. It comes down to Ryan on the day. It’s a difficult job, but he is a superstar, and we really appreciate that.

"I don’t take any success for granted, I take things hour by hour, and whatever happens, happens. You never know what tomorrow is going to bring, and that's how we handle the pressure. We just keep moving on to the next thing.

"Records never come into any consideration whatsoever, we're just trying to survive every day and doing the best thing for our horses at all times.

"Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but the important thing is always knowing you couldn't have done more."



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