The Big Interview: Joseph O'Brien

Last week, the TDN's Alayna Cullen took a trip to Joseph O'Brien's training facility, Carriganog Racing, at his family's farm in County Kilkenny, Ireland. Carriganog features Owning Hill, a 340-foot uphill gallop, which many have credited with adding stamina to horses like Rekindling, who recently made his trainer the youngest ever to win the Melbourne Cup. In the process, he denied his father, the legendary Aidan O'Brien, the victory.

TDN: Joseph, before we get on to the Melbourne Cup, I just want to talk about your career. It's been amazing so far. Can you sum it up for us?

JO: I suppose I've been very lucky, honestly. When I was very young, I started riding for Dad and Coolmore. I was very lucky to ride some very good horses. Then I started training, not long afterwards, and we've had a good run of it for the last just over a year or so.

TDN: Was it always the plan to be a jockey first and then go training?

JO: Yes. I always intended to train, and from when I was young, training was always something that I'd wanted to do, and absolutely. It is.

TDN: Do you miss the riding at all?

JO: No, I haven't missed riding at all, and haven't really had time. Like I say, we've been busy, and I haven't missed riding too much.

TDN: Would you ride out on your own at all?

JO: I ride out on Sunday morning. During the week, I don't ride out. Obviously, when we have the lot, it's hard to ride and to see what's going on. So no, I ride out on Sunday morning, and then that's it.

TDN: What's your biggest challenge, being a young trainer, do you think?

JO: I suppose it's always trying to attract a nice young horse, and it's all about the next one. When you have a horse that is quite good, it's very hard to try and concentrate and try and get another one, you know? So attracting owners and horses, and getting the good horses, is the most important thing. Getting them into the yard.

TDN: You come from the school of your parents, which is Aidan and Anne-Marie O'Brien. They're fantastic people in their own right. What would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned from watching them work?

JO: I suppose Dad always keeps things simple, and his attention to detail is something else, so they're probably something that I would try to concentrate on.

TDN: The facility you're training out of now, it's been in your family for generations, I would say. Was it always predestined for you to come and train here?

JO: I think so. Obviously my granddad was the first to train here, and he trained a lot of winners, and Mom and Francis, and then, obviously, Dad. Dad trained here too, trained an awful lot of winners from here. I think it was always somewhere I might end up training from.

TDN: It's a beautiful stable, and it's nestled in a beautiful countryside. Can you just tell us a little bit about the facility?

JO: We have one gallop, and it's seven furlongs on an incline. We have a couple of equine spas, we have a lot of walkers, and we have a number of different yards, dotted around a hill. We have everything that we could need here, and really, we're very lucky with the facilities that we have. It's completely private, you know?

TDN: The gallop you have is always rising, I suppose, it's on an incline. Can you just explain, really, why, in the European model of training, that the hill is so important?

JO: This one is probably slightly unique. I think it rises 340 feet from start to finish. All the horses, we train them on the gallop, but the two-year-olds wouldn't go as far, and the older horses would only go to the top when we want to work them. We vary each horse's routine, vary to each horse. It's a very good gallop, and there's been huge numbers of winners trained from here over the years. Whatever I can blame for getting things wrong, I can't blame the facilities.

TDN: A horse like Rekindling, who won the Melbourne Cup for you, what would his regime up the hill be?

JO: He has always been a very easy horse to train. We've never had to do too much work with them, only keep him fresh, so we've been very lucky with him.

TDN: When did the Melbourne Cup come up on his radar?

JO: It was obviously an option, I suppose, from early in the year, but it was only really after the Leger that Nick Williams called and he said, “Bring him down.” He said he thought he'd have a great chance in the race. It was just after the Leger, I suppose, that, really, things kicked into action.

TDN: It's an Australian race, but Europeans seem to dominate it. Do you think there's any reason why the European horses do so well in the Melbourne Cup?

JO: I'm not sure, but there's a great program, in Europe, for three-year-olds and older horses, and the racing is so competitive, I suppose, from sprinters right through to the middle distance horse to the stayers. The market for horses out of Ireland and England and Europe to travel around the world is so strong, and I suppose the success in the first whatever it was, in the nine, of the first eleven, or something, and it would only reiterate that.

TDN: Being down there, did you get a sense that racing is very much of the culture down there? What did you make of the whole Melbourne Cup festival?

JO: It was unbelievable, really. There's not too many races, if any races around the world, that as many people get behind the race. They call it 'the race that stops the nation,' and it really does. The attendance and the media that the race gets is huge.

TDN: Obviously it was the desired result for Rekindling winning, but what was your tactic going into the race? How did you think it would play out?

JO: Corey Brown, who rode the horse, he's a very good rider, he's very experienced. He's had a lot of luck in the Melbourne Cup. He's won it before, and he's had goodly placed horses, so we pretty much left tactics up to him. The race seemed to work out very well for him. He got a lovely run through when he needed it, and it couldn't have worked out any better for him, I think.

TDN: Could you believe it when he crossed the line in front?

JO: Not really, no. We had hoped that he would run well. In the first four or five finishers is what I was hoping for. But for him to win really was unbelievable.

TDN: Is there any jibbing across the dinner table now, with your dad, that you've achieved something he hasn't?

JO: No, not at all. He was delighted for us, and we're both delighted for Lloyd and Nick. They've been big supporters of mine, and they've been very good to me, and it was great to win the race for them, in particular. Absolutely. It's unbelievable, really. It's only sinking in now, I think.

TDN: Joseph, your father gets asked this question quite a lot, but after a race, who are you on the phone to?

JO: I don't think I was on the phone. I don't usually like to be on the phone that much, but Dad called not too long after the race, so he was delighted. Absolutely.

TDN: Well, Joseph, on behalf of TDN, well done, congratulations, and enjoy it.