It was a week of milestones. Eighty Royal Ascot winners for Aidan O'Brien and seventy for his main jockey Ryan Moore. But with this particular pair the counter never really sits still, and by the end of five days and 35 races, the trainer had boosted his tally to 81 – just one shy of Sir Michael Stoute's record – while Moore clocked off on 73, three behind current leader Frankie Dettori.
A far more telling statistic for the head of the vast Ballydoyle training operation was that the victory of Broome (Ire) (Australia {GB}) in the G2 Hardwicke S. brought up O'Brien's 900th victory in Group/Graded races in a career which has so far spanned almost 30 years and is surely still full of running.
The run-up to the big 900 had been provided perhaps most notably by Kyprios (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in the Gold Cup, a race in which so many of the Ascot faithful would have loved to see one last hurrah at the meeting for Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}). Instead, perhaps we have welcomed a new staying king from a family replete with top-level black type and just the sort of horse with which O'Brien has excelled over the years, with eight wins in the Gold Cup alone, four of those having been delivered by the mighty Yeats (Ire) (Sadler's Wells).
Overall, however, the results from Royal Ascot 2022 highlight the versatility and general dominance which has been key to O'Brien's training career. Changingoftheguard (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) was perhaps fortunate that Grand Alliance (Ire) (Churchill {Ire}) snatched defeat from the jaws of a likely victory when veering badly left in the closing stages of the G2 King Edward VII S. The more straightforward winner was bouncing back from a fifth-place finish in the Derby following his emphatic win in the G3 Chester Vase. That win came three hours after Meditate (Ire) had her trainer dreaming of more Group 1 days to come when winning the G3 Albany S. on a day when John Magnier made a rare visit to Ascot. The daughter of No Nay Never also gave O'Brien and her Coolmore sire a juvenile stakes double at the royal meeting following the second-day victory of Little Big Bear (Ire) in the Listed Windsor Castle S.
Just a few weeks after O'Brien set a new record for the number of British Classics won when Tuesday (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) became his 41st in the Oaks, by Saturday evening he had claimed his eleventh leading trainer title at Royal Ascot. His five winners were all ridden by Moore, who secured his ninth title as leading jockey with seven winners.
Speaking at Ascot on Friday, Magnier, the man responsible for installing the then-successful young jumps trainer O'Brien at Ballydoyle, said of his phenomenal tally of stakes winners, “That does the talking and he doesn't have to do it. It's refreshing to see a modest approach, I think.”
The same can be said for his stable jockey. Members of the media attempting to extract a word or two out of Ryan Moore may not often find his modesty, which often borders on terseness, refreshing, though they may take heart from the fact that the jockey is similarly sparing in his debriefs when being interviewed by his sister Hayley on Sky Sports Racing.
Twelve years ago Moore won his first Classic on Snow Fairy (Ire) in the Oaks. His memorable comment when being congratulated on this success was, “Well it's not the Derby, is it?” The next day he won the Derby on Workforce (GB). No cartwheels were forthcoming.
And that's the measure of Moore. He does his job with the minimum of fuss, saving his all for his horses and his paymasters. For this observer at least, Moore's complete lack of showboating is one of the best things about him – second only to his undeniable talent, and those are two attributes which so perfectly mirror O'Brien.
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