Aidan O'Brien: RTE Sports Manager Of The Year

Aidan O'Brien's marvelous achievements this year were recognised outside of the racing arena when the Ballydoyle trainer was presented with Manager Of The Year at the RTE Sports Awards in Dublin on Saturday night. Racing was doubly represented among the nominees for the award as Jessica Harrington was also short listed for the category but it was O'Brien who was selected by the RTE Sports Department as the recipient, at the expense of nominees that included among others Jim Gavin, who has coached the Dublin GAA team to three all Ireland titles in a row.

O'Brien's Saxon Warrior (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) provided the trainer with a record breaking 26^th Group 1 win of the year when taking the G1 Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster in October and he made the record extremely difficult to break when adding a further two top flight events to his haul courtesy of Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy) in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar and Highland Reel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in the G1 Longines Hong Kong Vase at Sha Tin last week.

O'Brien was in attendance at the awards ceremony along with his family and there was a surprising twist to the tale when the trainer was presented with his award by his son Joseph, who famously denied his father a first win in the G1 Emirates Melbourne Cup at Flemington last month.

Speaking to RTE's Joanne Cantwell while accepting the award O'Brien said, “We feel so privileged to be part of an incredible team of people who all work in a totally selfless way to achieve these results.” Asked how he could possibly top such an amazing season in 2018 O'Brien replied, “The way we go every year is we start off and do our best every day and accept what comes and be grateful for the races we win so all we can do is our best and look forward to it really.” Reflecting on his father's achievements in 2017 Joseph added, “You need an awful lot of luck for the horses to stay sound throughout the year and Dad just had the most wonderful year.”