Melbourne Cup 2017: Joseph O’Brien etches name into record books with Rekindling

JOSEPH O’Brien didn’t need to look at his mobile phone to know who was calling him just moments after he had become the youngest trainer to win a Melbourne Cup.

JOSEPH O’Brien didn’t need to look at his mobile phone to know who was calling him just moments after he had become — incredibly at 24 — the youngest Melbourne Cup-winning trainer, bucking more than 150 years of history.

The quietly-spoken, articulate young Irishman, who has only been training for 20 months, knew it would be his dad.

The presentation of the Cup was already underway, and the famous three-handled trophy was about to be handed over, but family comes first. He knew he had to take the call from the other side of the world.

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Aidan O’Brien — the world’s most successful trainer and sire of the young man who might one day break his records — couldn’t wait to congratulate his son for winning the race he hasn’t yet ticked off.

It didn’t matter that son beat father in the desperate slog to the Flemington post.

“He was over the moon,” Joseph O’Brien said. “He was as delighted for me as I would have been for him, had he won the race. His horse ran a cracker, but Rekindling just outstayed him a little better.”

Joseph O’Brien couldn’t hide his delight after becoming the youngest trainer to win the Melbourne Cup.

It’s not the first time he has upstaged his father. When Joseph had his first Group 1 success last year, with Intricately, in the Moyglare Stud Stakes (ridden by his brother Donnacha), Aidan not only trained the runner-up, but also the third placegetter.

Joseph, who flew into Melbourne only on Monday morning, has won the race at his first attempt and it’s only the second time Joseph has been to Australia, coming in 2008, when his father’s three horses set such a cracking pace during the race that they all finished near the tail of the field.

Joseph O'Brien was born the same year Vintage Crop won #MelbourneCup 1993 https://t.co/Mb247YRtdy pic.twitter.com/qSq0vs6yVd

— irishracing.com (@irishracing) November 7, 2017

Joseph was born in May 1993, only two weeks after his father trained his first winner. Fittingly, that was the year another Irish horse, Vintage Crop, became the first Northern Hemisphere-trained winner of the Melbourne Cup.

Highlighting the depth of yesterday’s achievement, Rekindling’s win was the first time since Vintage Crop that a Melbourne Cup winner saluted without having a prior run in Australia.

"I always wanted to train horses, even when I started riding." @JosephOBrien2 is now a #MelbourneCup winner at the age of 24. pic.twitter.com/PeJLPS8aVl

— Racing.com (@Racing) November 7, 2017

Like his three siblings, Joseph started out as a jockey, having significant success, winning two Epsom Derbys for his father with Camelot in 2012 and the aptly-named Australia in 2014.

He also won the Irish St Leger with Order Of St George in 2015, the horse that Rekindling ran second at The Curragh in August.

But riding was only a means to an ultimate end, as he took to training at Piltown, County Kilkenny, where his father and his maternal grandfather, Jim Crowley, originally started out.

He now has more than 120 horses in his care.

“I always wanted to train horses, even before I started riding,” he said yesterday. “There is so much more that goes into training a horse than riding one. That’s why this is so special to me.”