WHEN Flower Garland provided Donnacha O’Brien with his first winner as a trainer in Dundalk last February, just 111 days after he stopped riding, attention turned to what the 22-year-old was hoping to achieve in his first season.

The message was the same as when he announced he was going training late last year. He had a small team, he was hoping to start off slowly, he had a few nice horses but it was all going to be low key. Winning a group race was the aim.

“I remember someone asking me what was I hoping for at around that time and that’s what I said,” O’Brien reflects this week. “I knew I had some nice horses and that maybe one or two of them could be stakes class. A Group 3 was my aim but thankfully we’ve had a lot more than that.”

Even by an O’Brien’s standards, Donnacha’s start to his training career has been sensational. His team is relatively small but his achievements have been relatively big.

From fewer than 100 runs he has won three Group 1s in three different countries. In tomorrow’s Prix de l’Opera favourite Fancy Blue he has potentially the three-year-old filly of the year and in Moyglare winner Shale he has potentially the two-year-old filly of the year.

All of his success has come amid the strangest times, with the Covid impact to the schedule causing problems for even the most experienced trainers around.

Yet Donnacha has made it look easy.

“If you told me I’d have three Group 1 winners, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he asserts. “I said from the start that we were going to concentrate on quality instead of quantity so I didn’t expect to have a massive number of winners but to have the high-class horses that we have, it’s been an incredible start.”

Rumours were swirling around last season, as they do in Irish racing, that Donnacha might be going training this year. As it happened, he was overseeing a satellite yard for his father in Longfield Stables, the base from which David Wachman had trained from. That satellite yard hosted a few backward two-year-olds and one of them was Fancy Blue.

Fancy Blue and Ryan Moore winning the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood \Healy Racing

When the daughter of Deep Impact went to Naas for her maiden in September, technically she was trained by Aidan O’Brien, but in reality, it was Donnacha who was responsible. He rode her to win that maiden and then sent her to the Listed Staffordstown Stud Stakes, booked Seamie Heffernan to ride, and she won that too. That is when the winter dreaming started.

“I knew her since she was a yearling so it was a big buzz at the time to see her win her maiden,” Donnacha recalls. “She’s obviously well-bred but to see that what you’re doing at home was working, it was a big buzz, a different kind of buzz.

“We were kind of aiming her at Newmarket at the start of the year and then obviously everything went a bit mad with the virus so we took our time and decided we’d go to the Curragh.

“Declan (McDonogh) rode her there and I told him it’s probably a bit too sharp for her, so take your time and get her to finish out her race. I had initially planned to step her up to 12 furlongs after that but she showed such a good turn of foot (running on for second) I thought we could try her at 10 furlongs in the Prix de Diane.

“Obviously there was great prize money in France and we didn’t have to take on Love at Epsom so they were the bonuses. Everything went right at Chantilly, she got a great ride and showed how good she was. That was an incredible day. She backed it up in the Nassau and I was delighted with her run at Leopardstown, back at a mile on quick ground, which was just too sharp for her.

“I think she is a filly that only just does enough and I like that. Even at home, we initially thought she was quite a nice filly that would have no problem winning her maiden. Then she won her group race. She just about won it, but every time we ask her more questions she just finds the answers. I think the most she’s ever won by is a neck. She’s like that at home, she’s gone clever, she’ll only beat her lead horse a half a length at most.

“All being well, she goes for the Prix de l’Opera (tomorrow). It looks like a very good race but she is coming back over 10 furlongs and we’re hopeful she won’t be too hindered by the ground. She stays in training next year, which is great. There is lots to look forward to.”

Shale’s private duel with Pretty Gorgeous has lit up the juvenile fillies’ division and has allowed for a bit of craic and friendly rivalry between two brothers, the latter filly trained by Joseph. The current scoreline is two to one in favour of Donnacha’s filly.

Brothers Joseph and Donnacha O'Brien at Naas this season \Healy Racing

“I think it’s a great rivalry. It’s great to see – we’d be very excited to see the pair of them taking each other on. They probably won’t do it again this season as we’re looking at the Fillies’ Mile for Shale, and maybe the Breeders’ Cup, but it’d be class to see the two of them in a Guineas maybe next year.

“Shale won her maiden nicely at Gowran and then I thought at Leopardstown she probably got first run on Pretty Gorgeous. Then in the Debutante Joseph’s filly looked by far the best, but it was very soft ground that day so it was hard to judge.

“My one is a lovely, low-moving filly that would be suited by quick ground so I thought they’d be closer again in the Moyglare. I think the Moyglare was the best test of their abilities yet – they eyeballed each other two furlongs out, they both had no excuses, it was nice safe ground – not quick or not testing – and our filly was very tough. I think it would be hard to say that our filly is not the best at this stage.”

Success

The majority of O’Brien’s horses this year have been trained for the Coolmore partners or for his mother Annemarie. With such significant success, he surely has a solid platform to expand further and welcome in new owners, but that’s not on his agenda.

He explains: “I think we’ll have a few more for next year, maybe an extra 10 horses but we’re still not going to have a huge team – probably around 50. I think that’s a nice number.

“As I said at the start I don’t ever want to have 200 or 250 horses. I think I’d always rather have a smaller number and better quality. It’ll still be the core base of owners I have now. They are the well-bred horses and they (Coolmore partners) are the people who have supported me all throughout my career and I’m hugely grateful to them. Hopefully I’ll get a few nice yearlings for next year and that’s what the main focus will be.

“Since, I’ve been training, success is less often, so you get a bigger kick out of it and you feel more connected to it.”

“I always wanted to win the big races. Some people get a big buzz about being able to rack up three or four handicaps and I totally get that and I think it’s incredible when people can do that. But I always wanted to win the big races as a rider and that has translated to training.

“I think in terms of numbers it’s just easier to manage. I find it fascinating to watch Joseph work in the mornings with the amount of horses he has, it’s unbelievable how he’s able to keep track of it all. I’d probably struggle to do that myself.”

Staff

A lot of the staff at Longfield Stables have come over from Ballydoyle and a few of them also used to work for David Wachman, so know the surroundings quite well. Damien Kerwick, who worked for Aidan O’Brien for a long time, is Donnacha’s head man now and has been “an incredible help”.

O’Brien clearly takes a leaf out of his father’s book by placing a huge emphasis on the impact of staff. He rarely rides out anymore, preferring to stay on the ground and get a better overview of what is going on. He also used his first-hand experience when riding to source the up-and-coming Gavin Ryan to ride a lot of his horses.

“When you’re riding with people everyday you can see things that wouldn’t be obvious from the telly,” says O’Brien. “You can see who’s using their head, who’s riding a race well and who’s making the right decisions at the right times.

Right: Donnacha O'Brien and Gavin Ryan before the former's first runner in his own name \Healy Racing

“Gavin was always someone who stood out to me as a good apprentice. Every year there’s two or three lads that the people who have been riding a while can see have a chance of making it and Gavin was always one of them.”

Speaking to Daragh O Conchúir for this feature two years ago, O’Brien spoke of the sudden shock he and his family got following news of his uncle Pat Smullen’s illness. His prediction that Smullen would fight his corner with everything he had was right on the money.

“He was an incredible man, an incredible rider,” he reflects now. “When I first started out and I didn’t really know what to do in a race, it was just a case of following Pat. All riders in Ireland will tell you that. If you didn’t know what to do, you followed Pat.

“He was always in the best position at the right time. He was an incredible man and an incredible rider and we’ll all miss him greatly.”

In the same interview, Donnacha said he would probably only have time to reflect on what he achieved as a jockey himself when he finished riding. He says he still hasn’t found that time but he has noticed a significant and welcome difference in his day-to-day lifestyle.

Borrowed

Like Joseph, his time as a jockey was borrowed, so he gave it absolutely everything when he could, aiming to leave little room for any regret.

“Obviously I was very lucky to be riding such good horses,” he says. “Whether it was myself, Joseph, Sarah or Ana, we always worked hard at home and dad was always very good to us to give us the opportunities to sit on some nice horses and all the Coolmore partners were very good to allow us to ride them as well.

“Part of the reason that I lasted as long as I did was because I knew that once I stopped, that was it. I wanted to get as much out of it as possible. It was tough, it’s definitely a tough lifestyle, physically and mentally, it’s very draining.

“You only appreciate how hard a lifestyle it is when you’re out of it. You’re getting up at six o’clock in the morning, I’d ride out a few lots, I’d then spend three or four hours losing weight, then you go racing all day and most of the time you’re not getting back until late at night and that was every day. You have to take your hat off to the lads who do have weight problems and have been doing it for a long time.

“Yet at the same time when you’re getting good opportunities to ride good horses in big races, you’d be foolish not to do everything you can to ride them. I think it was a good thing to do, to have that experience of race-riding and it’s only a bonus going forward in my training career.”

Day-to-day

Most jockeys turned trainers say it was much easier as a rider, that the pressure only starts when you’re responsible for the day-to-day running of a yard but such was his day-to-day strain, things have got easier for O’Brien now.

“It’s different for everyone but I can certainly say I have more of a life now than I did when I was riding,” he explains. “I pretty much had no life outside of racing when I was riding. You might get the odd weekend off but mostly you’ve no time to do anything and even if you do you’re constantly thinking about your weight so you can’t enjoy yourself at all.

“I feel like I have a better quality of life now that I’m training. Once the horses are fed by five o’clock in the evening, after that you’re free to go meet a few friends for some food or in the summer I can play a round of golf. Like it sounds very basic but they’re things that you can’t do when you’re riding and I certainly appreciate it now.

“When you win, it feels different as well, it’s a different type of buzz. I was riding a lot of dad’s horses towards the end of my career and I was battling hard for the jockeys’ title. In that case, every winner is just a number. If I had one winner, and Colin (Keane) had two, it would be a bad day regardless of what I did.

“Since, I’ve been training, success is less often, so you get a bigger kick out of it and you feel more connected to it.”

There could well be even bigger kicks to come, this weekend and onwards.