RACING:THE FORMER top National Hunt trainer Michael O'Brien died yesterday at the age of 68.
A former champion National Hunt jockey in the US, Co Dublin-born O’Brien was confined to a wheelchair when a race fall in America in 1974 left him paralysed from the chest down.
However that didn’t prevent him from starting a training career back in Ireland and O’Brien made an immediate impact with horses such as Chorelli, Tacroy and most of all Bright Highway, who completed the Mackeson-Hennessy double in late 1980.
Bright Highway was briefly ante-post favourite for the 1981 Cheltenham Gold Cup but injury prevented him fulfilling his potential. In 1982, O’Brien notched the first of three wins in the Irish Grand National with King Spruce. That year he dominated the Fairyhouse Easter festival as Seán Ogue also landed the Powers Gold Cup.
In 1985 O’Brien moved stables from the Curragh to near Naas from where he sent out Vanton and Glebe Lad to win the Irish Nationals of 1992 and 1999 respectively.
There were two victories at the Cheltenham festival. The Charlie Swan-ridden Shawiya landed the 1993 Triumph Hurdle while Tom Ryan rode the JP McManus owned 50 to 1 shot Kadoun to win the 2006 Pertemps Final.
Other big-race victories included Dovaly in the Galway Plate of 2000 and Shaihar who won at the Punchestown festival.
O’Brien could be famously tough on jockeys who he felt hadn’t ridden up to scratch and explained: “There are two ways of doing things, the right way and the wrong way. As long as people do things right, there is no problem with me.”
O’Brien, who retired from training two years’ ago, was affectionately known within racing as “Ironside” after the 1970s television detective series, a monicker given to him by the former Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy, who had horses in training with him for many years.
