Master O'Brien saves HRI launch from falling flat

RACING:  There's timing, poor timing, leaving The Beatles in 1962 timing, and then there's trying to sell flat racing just a week before Cheltenham.

Never slow to set the bar high, that's the task Horse Racing Ireland set for themselves yesterday as they hosted an official launch of the 2004 flat season.

Trying to get the National Hunt loving Irish public to tear their eyes away from the rustic charms of Cheltenham requires a considerable armoury, especially now, but HRI wheeled in the game's most evocative name to try and grab some attention.

If it's spring time and you absolutely have to talk flat, then the phrase Ballydoyle and the name O'Brien are always your best bet.

It's no different now that Aidan is the master of the world famous Co Tipperary stables and it only took a few other names from a list of blue-blooded classic prospects currently waiting to burst into action before talk of Epsom in the sun rather than Cheltenham in the drizzle started to look less ridiculous.

Even so the first question fired at the Master of Ballydoyle was a quippy: "Anything for the bumper, Aidan?" O'Brien has put more than a few of those types through his hands but when the new flat campaign kicks off at the Curragh on Sunday week it will be the high-risk and high-speed variety of horseflesh that will focus his mind.

And there is nothing more high-risk and high-speed than the 2,000 Guineas favourite One Cool Cat.

O'Brien revealed yesterday that the double Group One winning colt will probably go straight to Newmarket with hopefully a post-race gallop in between to get his eye in. The Curragh is favourite to host such a spin.

"That would be perfect and it's probable we will go straight for the Guineas," he said. It also seems nothing has changed his admiration for a colt who at one stage last year had O'Brien idly contemplating knocking down a wall in his house so the horse could sleep in the room next door.

"What he did last year was because of pure, raw ability . To look at the size of him and to see what he did was hard to imagine and we always thought he would be a better three-year-old.

"He is 60 kilos heavier now than he was as a two-year-old which unbelievable amount of weight but he has continued to work well," the trainer said.

O'Brien then started to try and make comparisons between this latest potential superstar and some of the past, and when O'Brien does that he has some names to draw on, not least the teak tough "Iron Horse" of 2,000, Giant's Causeway.

"One Cool Cat is very like Giant's Causeway in that once he gets to the front one ear goes back and the other goes forward. He does very little when he gets there. What makes him different is when he is given five or eight lengths to make up on a horse and he does it so easily," he said.

It's almost de rigueur through the winter for the Derby favourite to be housed in Ballydoyle and it's been no exception this time with Yeats who won his only start at the Curragh in September.

"Ideally we will be looking at the Ballysax at Leopardstown for his first start," reported O'Brien. "We are very happy with the way he is going and he has had a good clear run through the winter." Other Derby colts nominated included Magritte - "a colt we've always loved" - and Wolfe Tone while the Moyglare winner Necklace will probably follow the Guineas and Oaks route taken in recent years by Yesterday and Imagine.

The older horse will include Yesterday, who could start off in the Lockinge, the Leger winner Brian Boru and the perfectly bred Mingun. However, after a comparatively lacklustre year in 2003, O'Brien is taking nothing for granted.

"I'm happy with them at the moment but I'm always happy with them at this stage," he said. "Everyone is dreaming now but reality sets in after a few runs!"

Even allowing for the time of year, a faint flicker of anticipation still ran through the room as he said it.