Aidan O'Brien has won five July Cups placing him alongside his predecessor Vincent O'Brien and early twentieth century handler Dan Morton.
The first two arrived in 1999 and 2001 courtesy of Stravinsky and Mozart before Australian import Starspangledbanner collected in 2010; there was an eight year gap until U S Navy Flag with Ten Sovereigns collecting the prize money the following season.
The first two named are O'Brien's only winners of the Nunthorpe Stakes, he has never won the Sprint Cup at Haydock Park while only Bianconi (1998) has won the contest re-purposed as the British Champions Sprint Stakes when it was still known as the Diadem Stakes and runs as a Group 2.
At Royal Ascot Starspangledbanner and Merchant Navy obliged in the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Stakes, Caravaggio collected the Commonwealth Cup and this week Mission Central completed O'Brien's clean sweep of Group 1s at the meeting when finishing powerfully in the King Charles III Stakes.
Few of them were campaigned as out-and-out sprinters with Stravinsky's July Cup win - in a course record - his first start over six furlongs since debut while Mozart's was his very first run over the distance and so it goes on. The desire, perhaps, to win the Classics, to boost the potential stallion value, to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Stravinsky won three of his eight starts - a maiden and those two Group 1s - and O'Brien, typically, blamed himself saying "we tried to stretch him and make him a miler... maybe it was me messing him up".
O'Brien said this week how they always look forwards, never back, but he - and the team - wouldn't have got to where they are without learning lessons from the past and this, it seems, is one lesson they are reluctant to learn with the much-hyped but thus far disappointing - in relative terms - Albert Einstein the latest cab off the rank.
The answer, presumably, and to paraphrase, is 'it's the economics, stupid' and it is unlikely to be a coincidence that Mission Central - campaigned as a sprinter and a winner of six of his nine starts - was gelded after being turned over at even money on debut.
It will be interesting to follow the career of Comanche Brave - once owned by a Coolmore partnership and trained by Donnacha O'Brien - who is still entire and locked horns (well, sort of, given he was brushed aside) with Ka Ying Rising in Hong Kong in April. Again, he's spent most of his time over seven furlongs and a mile and could only finish seventh in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (for which he halved in price) but his trainer's words after his impressive Curragh success were notable with O'Brien commenting 'he was nearly a very good horse over a mile and I thought he could be a proper horse back sprinting'.
It will take a proper horse to win The Everest, held in mid-October.
Billed as the world's richest race on turf with prize money of Aus$20,000,000 (around £15m), it was first run in 2017 and achieved Group 1 status in 2024; it was won last year by Ka Ying Rising.
The concept of the race, as described on racenet.com.au, is that "there are 12 slot holders who each forked out $700,000 to pick their own runner to line up in the 1200 metre [six furlong] weight-for-age race for three-year-olds and upwards" with "those positions are able to be traded, sold, and available for joint venture or lease prior to entry date".
Coolmore have a 'slot' in The Everest and that race was mentioned as a possible target for Mission Central who could follow in the steps of U S Navy Flag and Ten Sovereigns. Neither covered themselves in glory with the heavy ground against U S Navy Flag and Ten Sovereigns failing to handle the bend on the sharp track at Randwick.
O'Brien leaves no stone unturned in his preparations and has prepped his Breeders' Cup runners at Southwell in the past and if they are serious about targeting The Everest, you can be sure that any future runners will be well versed in running fast around a bend.
Coolmore, and therefore Ballydoyle, are in the business of making stallions and for all that horse racing is a sport, there is no place at the table if you don't have a solid financial foundation (as any number of football clubs can testify) but perhaps the riches of scaling The Everest might be enough to turn heads?
There is a market for stallions of sprinters as a glance at the Coolmore Australia roster reveals. That obviously won't be Mission Central - who is only third favourite for the July Cup at a top price of 8/1 - who lacks the crucial components and has plenty to find with the division's leading players.
O'Brien has won 12 English Derbys, 11 Oaks and 9 St Legers along with 17 Irish Derbys and 8 Irish Oaks.
Ballydoyle have been utterly dominant as John Gosden entertainingly - whether you agree or not - commented in an interview with the Racing Post last Sunday.
"A lot of us feel the way the Derby is now being run is conducive to creating National Hunt stallions, which is not good," he said.
"People love to see horses with a turn of foot. The Derby used to be won by horses who could quicken, but the pace of the modern Derby has been fairly ruthless. It seems to me the Prix du Jockey Club has become the stallion-making race, whereas the Derby has been shunted aside."
Was it a mischievous tongue-in-cheek comment or a nod to the above that led Gosden to say Ombudsman was "too good to go a mile and a half"?
There is, it seems, a need for speed but how much is the question. Imagine what the landscape would look like if O'Brien and The Lads turned their attention to producing top-notch sprinters and put their round pegs in round holes.
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