Julian Muscat
Aidan O'Brien paraded 15 horses before the media yesterday and spent most of the time talking about the one he had resolved to say nothing about. From that detail alone, those who dismiss St Nicholas Abbey's prospects of winning next month's Investec Derby are on dangerous ground.
O'Brien cannot contain himself when it comes to a special horse. In the 2,000 Guineas build-up, the man who spends every morning around a herd of equine aristocrats had seen enough to believe St Nicholas Abbey would win the Newmarket classic on natural ability alone. The colt might have been found wanting but O'Brien's faith remains robust.
“I had it in my head that I wasn't going to talk about him today,” O'Brien said of the son of Montjeu. “There are a lot of horses out there that might need defending but he is not one of them. He can defend himself. So I say: 'watch him'.”
All the while O'Brien was anxious not to be seen hyping a horse that lit bonfires of expectation with his unbeaten sequence last season. It has happened too many times in the past, yet everything he sees with his finely-honed eye tells him that St Nicholas Abbey remains a prodigious talent.
He reiterated the combination of circumstances that he feels compromised the colt at Newmarket, and he was unequivocal when it was suggested that a brilliant horse would have overcome such adversity. “I don't agree,” he countered. “I'm not surprised he was unable to win. Horses are only flesh and blood, and circumstances can conspire against you.”
O'Brien's case was fortified by Johnny Murtagh, whose post-race analysis has bordered on the forensic. “Like everyone else, I was expecting so much that I was a bit disappointed at the time,” the jockey said. “But taking everything into consideration, it was a good run. He didn't give me the same feel at Newmarket at all to what he gave me at Doncaster [last season]. I still believe in him.”
The main thrust of O'Brien's case is based on the mind-boggling sequence of times St Nicholas Abbey posted in his homework. They were better than Ballydoyle's fabled milers of yesteryear. “The difference between him and them is that he was doing it a lot easier,” he said.
“Maybe that was his undoing. Maybe I should have asked him to do a bit more, because he went to Newmarket fresh and then he caught that slow pace. The ability is there with this horse. All we have to do is not mess him up, and we've done that once already.”
O'Brien posted his first Derby trial victory on Sunday to suggest his string is finally finding its feet. “I think we are just starting to come out of the jungle,” he said. “A whole lot of little things were slowing us down, but St Nicholas Abbey was always our number one Derby candidate and nothing has changed about that.”
Ballydoyle's emergence from the grip of winter was plain to see in the horses O'Brien paraded yesterday. Their coats shone in the sunshine and St Nicholas Abbey, who looked lean before the 2,000 Guineas, has since put on a deal of weight. He certainly looks a different animal to the one that left paddock-watchers at Newmarket feeling perplexed.
O'Brien, who revealed that You'll Be Mine is not guaranteed to run in the Investec Oaks after missing the 1,000 Guineas with a setback, admitted that it hasn't been easy to keep his nerve while the string has struggled to find its form. Midas Touch's victory at Leopardstown may have signalled the turning point but St Nicholas Abbey has a reputation to restore. From O'Brien's perspective, the Derby cannot come soon enough.
