Richard O’Brien

Richard O’Brien was hopeful going to Galway. One runner, Feud in the first race on Monday evening, the first race of the week, the novices’ hurdle that Mystical Power won last year. There would be 52 races run at Galway after Feud’s race, but Richard O’Brien wouldn't be involved in any of them. His whole week, Galway 2024, would stand or fall for him on the first race.

“He’s a humble little horse at home,” says the trainer now. “Based on what he had done at Listowel, I thought that we were going there with a good chance. But I had no more information than you had going into the race.”

Feud had been really impressive in winning at Listowel, but his trainer worried that he had got on a golden highway there. Danny Mullins had ridden him that day, around the outside. His trainer worried that maybe his horse had been flattered by the performance.

“Charles Byrnes’ mare Redwood Queen won the race after ours at Listowel, and she went the exact same route, around the outside. But then Redwood Queen was impressive again in winning at Killarney. And our race started to work out, the fourth horse won at Downpatrick. So we were hopeful going to Galway.”

And the more the Galway race progressed, the more hopeful he got. Feud travelled really well through his race for Danny Mullins. He travelled best of all down the hill, hit the front on the crown of the home turn, and bounded clear up the hill.

“We couldn't have been happier really with his performance,” says Richard. “His jumping was good. When he was right at his hurdles, he was good, and when he was wrong, he didn’t panic, he just got over it. And he won well, it looked like he could have gone around again.”

Just shows you, the highs and lows of this game. The week before Galway, Richard had lost a horse at Ballinrobe, a lovely bumper horse, owned by Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, who was travelling well in front under Patrick Mullins when he went wrong. Then you go to Galway, hopes high but tempered. You could finish third or fourth and then the dream that you might have a high-class novice hurdler is not live anymore.

“Galway has been good to us,” says the trainer, who sent out Last Ammo to spring a 40/1 shock in a two-mile handicap at last year’s festival. “But when you are dealing with a handful of horses like we are, you don’t really target Galway. The race was there, a winners’ novices’ hurdle for four-year-olds, it fitted in well for Feud, so we decided to go. That said, the profile that Galway has, it’s great to have a winner there. Even my wife was getting texts from the neighbours, I see Richard had a winner at Galway!”

It was his wife who took Richard to Edinburgh. They went there in 2011 and spent six years there as Norma completed her training in dentistry. Richard had qualified as a dentist himself in University College Cork, but it was only so that he had a qualification in case the racing thing didn’t work out.

“I was obsessed with racing from an early age,” he says. “My dad had was big into point-to-points, and I rode out in as many places as I could. When I was 18 or 19 though, my parents figured that I needed to have a qualification behind me in case things didn’t work out.”

He rode out wherever he could, he rode out at Aidan O’Brien’s and at Joe Crowley’s, he spent summers in Kentucky and he rode in over 20 point-to-points and in 10 or 12 bumpers, but all the while he harboured ambitions to take out a trainer’s licence. When he was in Edinburgh, he combined working as a dentist with riding out for David O’Meara.

“David and I should have known each other before that, our fathers were friends, but I didn’t know him until I moved to Edinburgh and I sent him a filly. He was just starting to gather momentum in his career when I started riding out for him, and I learned so much from him. He is an exceptionally bright person.”

Richard O’Brien bought his current place in Ballingarry in County Limerick, started to develop it as a base for the training of racehorses, and got his trainer’s licence at the end of 2016. In 2017, the Clareman had 13 winners on the flat in Ireland. In 2017, he had 14 on the flat and one over jumps.

Feud was his second National Hunt winner this season when he won at Killarney in June – after Extrapolation’s win at Ballinrobe in May – and he was his third when he won at Galway. Winner of a 12-furlong handicap on the flat at Haydock for Ralph Beckett and Clipper Logistics, it was at the Tattersalls Horses-In-Training Sale last October that Richard picked him up for the Lough Hyne Partnership.

“The lads are from Skibereen, and they’re great lads. It was a good owner of mine Frank Lynch who introduced me to them.”

The Lough Hyne Partnership are Billy Barry, Tim and Barry Loney, and Brian O’Neill.

“We bid 45,000 on a horse by Sea The Stars a couple of lots before Feud came up in the sale,” says Richard. “He went to 50,000, we didn’t get him. I was stuck on 44,000 on Feud, someone else bid 45,000. I was going to let him go at that, but David Skelly, who is a big help to me at the sales, said go one more. So we bid 46,000 and we got him.”

That looks like a serious bargain now. By Dubawi and out of the May Hill winner Agnes Stewart, also dam of Fallen Angel, now an Irish 1000 Guineas winner, Feud is two for two now over hurdles, and you just don’t know how good he could be.

“We said the Royal Bond Hurdle after Galway, and we’re still thinking that. But there’s a nice race for him at Tipperary on 6^th October, a Grade 3 novices’ hurdle, and he could go there next, all being well.”

The dream remains live.

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