Landmark winner for Tipperary-based trainer Aidan O'Brien at Irish Champions Festival
Henry Longfellow triumphs in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes
Stablemate City Of Troy was a late scratching due to a change in the going but Tipperary-based Aidan O’Brien still registered a landmark 4,000th winner as a trainer (jumps included) as Henry Longfellow streaked to a devastating triumph in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes at the Irish Champions Festival at Leopardstown.
It was a fitting race for the Ballydoyle maestro to join Dermot Weld and Willie Mullins in achieving such a remarkable feat, and not just because the race memorialises the legendary figure who established the Rosegreen thoroughbred palace from which he operates as a global centre of excellence.
It was in this race that the younger O’Brien – still only 53 – landed a Group 1 for the first time, when Walter Swinburn propelled Desert King to victory. That horse would go on to supply a first Classic success in the Irish 2,000 Guineas the following season and it would be no surprise if Henry Longfellow at least matches that next year.
Ryan Moore’s body language told you that he was supremely confident, as Cuban Thunder made the running and the 10/11 favourite streaked clear on the rain-softened turf to score by five lengths from Islandsinthestream for O’Brien’s son Joseph, with Adrian Murray’s Bucanero Fuerte fading in the ground to be seven and a half lengths further adrift in third.
“What he has is different. He travels and when Ryan asked him, he just quickens and that’s very hard to deal with for other horses," said Aidan O'Brien.
“City Of Troy ran in this kind of ground in Newmarket but it’s a long time since he ran and he was going to improve for a run. And sometimes in that soft ground the horse that’s going to improve for the run, win, lose or draw they can have a very hard time.
“This horse had ran a couple of weeks ago. His mam (Minding) handled the ground no problem and he had ran in it as well. He looks a very special horse”.
And his reaction to reaching 4,000?
“I didn’t know till the horse crossed the line that that was our 4,000th winner!” he insisted.