Aidan O'Brien eyes Kentucky Derby glory with Mendelssohn
After a record-breaking season last year, Aidan O'Brien is looking to break new ground again in 2018 by winning the Kentucky Derby.
Mendelssohn is the chosen one after his win in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf, but he will face a different surface in the 'Run for the Roses', which has yet to go the way of a European-based trainer.
With that in mind Mendelssohn had a run on the Polytrack at Dundalk recently and is part of a small team O'Brien is taking to Dubai, which to date has not been his happiest hunting ground.
Seahenge and Threeandfourpence will join him in the UAE Derby, with Idaho, Lancaster Bomber and Deauville other possibles for World Cup night.
"It's a very competitive place and the first big festival of the year. We've gone there before and horses have run disappointingly, like Highland Reel, and you're only kidding yourself it you think you're going to go out there and it's going to be easy touches," said O'Brien.
"We do the best we can to get them there and we think the Dubai trial is the perfect race on the way to Kentucky. It's a very strong race itself."
The Kentucky Derby is viewed by O'Brien as one of the last unbroken frontiers given the European record in the race and all runners he has sent so far have come up well short, although Master Of Hounds was far from disgraced when fifth in 2011.
"It would mean a lot to win it. With those type of races you don't expect to ever win them, but you try to win them," he said.
"They are so competitive. You are going over to the other side of the world and getting pitched into a different culture of racing totally. It's a different surface and different everything.
"It's brilliant that we've had the trial for it this year in Ireland. Those kind of things make everything possible for us here in Ireland, being able to get started on the way.
"You do your best and when you fail you try to learn what you could go better the next time. You'd be naive to think that you're going to go there and win, but we'll do our best to win and want to win.
"So many things have to fall right for a horse to win any of those big races and I'm amazed when it does happen because so many ducks have to come in a row for it to happen."
Of Mendelssohn, O'Brien added: "We're not guaranteed for sure that he will get a mile and a quarter, but we're going to find out a lot more in Dubai. Ryan (Moore) was very happy with him in Dundalk. He travelled well and went there, but he doesn't do a lot when he gets to the front.
"He's a brother to Beholder. Scat Daddy is obviously an influence for speed, but American racing is very different and the most important thing of all is speed. You just hope for stamina after that, but if you don't have pace it's a waste of time.
"We think he has enough pace, but whether he has enough stamina or not we'll learn. Hopefully we have him trained and conditioned properly to be able to compete.
"He's after having his run now and that should leave him nice for Dubai and he should come forward again after that.
"We should have two runs before. We went there with horses before that have run respectably, like Master Of Hounds and Johannesburg, but this time the horses are going to have two runs."
While O'Brien soared high in topping the previous best for Group One winners in a year set by the late Bobby Frankel, the one low point was when his daughter, Ana, suffered a horrible fall at Killarney in which she suffered fractured vertebrae in her back and neck.
"It was one of those things that really nothing else mattered," said O'Brien. "All the stuff we do every day in every way is just really stuff.
"We work so we can have enough money to feed ourselves and stay alive, but really it's all only stuff and that stuff doesn't really matter.
"We were just so lucky with Ana, because the alternative was terrible. All the things that happened, the belt in the head, neck and back were all major things so thank God she is great.
"Ana doesn't remember it or anything for a while after, but she's great now and she's a massive help to me.
"She rode out for two days and then went to Cheltenham for four days and has rode one lot for the last few mornings here. We're very much taking it day by day and Ana's in great form, thank God, and doing very well."
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