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Aidan O'Brien reigns supreme on Racing Post Trophy Day

Trainer Aidan O’Brien was celebrating again after the Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster on Saturday as his Kingsbarns landed the prestigious contest for two-year-olds for the seventh time in the last 16 years.

Kingsbarns had raced only once coming prior to Saturday, easily winning a Navan maiden earlier in the month, but he justified his trainer’s decision to supplement him for the race as he beat Van Der Neer by a length and three quarters. Twelve months previously, O’Brien had saddled another runner with exactly the same profile, Camelot, who also scored easily under his son, Joseph, and went on to land the QIPCO 2000 Guineas and Investec Derby. Kingsbarns is now as low as 6/1 and 4/1 respectively to emulate him in both those contests in 2013.

Having only made his debut 17 days previously, Kingsbarns still looked very inexperienced once sent to the front over a furlong out and Aidan commented afterwards that, "Joseph said he was stopping in front and pricking his ears, he took it up earlier than he wanted. He's very exciting."

This Group 1 victory helped O’Brien move closer to John Gosden in the trainers’ title, but victory now probably looks beyond the former champion with less than two weeks of the Flat season remaining. The fact that O’Brien has managed to throw down a challenge at all is fairly remarkable considering that Kingsbarn’s victory on Saturday was the stable’s first two-year-old winner in Britain this year!

On what was a great day for the O’Brien family on Saturday – Aidan’s wife, Anne-Marie, actually bred Kingsbarns – it was also confirmed that Joseph will pick up a first ever Irish Champion Jockey trophy. His nearest rival, Pat Smullen, rode a treble at Leopardstown but needed six winners to catch his rival before both men jet off to America for the Breeders’ Cup next weekend.   

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