Day one of the Sky Bet York Ebor Festival road trip to Ireland and visits to two very different trainers.
Pat O’Donnell is someone I've never spoken to before but 30 minutes in his company leaves you craving 30 more.
With Aidan O’Brien at Ballydoyle it’s very different, an hour or so drive away but a different world entirely. Here you realise how special it is and how privileged you are to be behind the walls of the most powerful racing stable seen in Europe for a generation, maybe even ever.
For O’Donnell, at his farm and yard in a picturesque corner of Kilmallock, Co Limerick, things are on a much smaller scale. He trains a handful of horses but one of them, Extensio, has already provided him with a day of days.
His success in the 2022 Ladies’ Derby at the Curragh, under the trainer’s daughter Sylvia, is the type of moment that keeps the fires burning.
And now the horse has a new target, the two mile handicap at the Sky Bet Ebor Festival later this month. Watch the video across our social media channels in the coming days for the back-story and update. They’re relishing the trip, win, lose or draw, but won’t be there making up the numbers.
Not that the O’Donnells have ever been in that business.
A cup of coffee in his kitchen allows you see the treasure trove of photos on the wall of the great days the family have enjoyed, none bigger than Chance Coffey’s success in the Coral Cup of 1995.
“My dad isn’t well at the moment but he’s holding his own and he owned the horse and the first thing that comes to mind is how much of a sportsman he was,” the trainer says proudly.
“It was a big thing to do in 1995 with a horse who had only won one race but he had been plagued with injury and we knew we had a good one.
“It was surreal. I’d only been to Cheltenham once before that as a spectator staying with my good friend Brian Meehan who was assistant to Richard Hannon at the time. Even then walking into Cheltenham, my god the amphitheatre, it was something else."
And in March 1995 there was the added pressure of expectation.
“We couldn’t really show his form because he was so delicate, we went there not on a wing and a prayer. he'd been placed the year before on fast ground," O'Connell said.
So what were confidence levels like going into that race?
“I’ve said before but he would have eaten stones on the morning of Cheltenham. We were confident our horse was right and we had a very big rub of the green because the ground ended up soft to heavy, it hasn’t been as soft or heavy since and that was massive for us.
“I knew he was right and he’d been third in the race the year before. He was only 14/1 on the day and one of the Racing Post lead tipsters in the paper led the page with ‘Chance Coffey Is Value’ – so we were quietly confident.
And already on too
“We got on a lot earlier,” he smiled, “At 33s and whatever.”
And when you win a race like that, at a venue like that, it stays with you.
“I don’t like watching it. I’ve only looked at it about three times and don’t like doing that, but I suppose it’s a great boost for your confidence.
“Everyone hung on every word the great Paddy Mullins said and he said once in a relation to a handicap that if you’re horse gets in one, he's entitled to be there, no matter what the naysayers may say.
“That bit of wisdom contributed to us having a go.
“And that Chance Coffey win does boost your confidence if you haven’t had a winner for a little while and are slightly questioning what you’re doing which all trainers do.
“And you just say no, they’re horses, they’ve all got four legs, keep it simple. We’ve had good success in the past and we’ll have more in the future.”
The sport has undergone huge change in the 29 years since Chance Coffey's success. Willie Mullins' domination on both sides of the Irish Sea is rewriting the record books and the Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead teams continue to do things that in any other era would have been unfathomable.
But from O'Donnell there are no cries for revolution, restriction or changes to level the playing field.
“I’m 58, we crawled up by being competitive. It’s sport, there’s no one putting things in place at the Olympics this week to keep out the big names," he argued.
“They don’t say you win two and go home. Where racing is worries me, but I wouldn’t be putting on any restrictions on the guys.
“I know Willie Mullins well, we topped out together 40 years ago as amateurs, I know what he’s achieved, how he’s done it, the levels by which he’s done it.
“I have anecdotal insights into him, I have my own insights into him. We should enjoy him, embrace him, he won’t be around forever.”
The might of the O'Briens and Mullins' of the world might dominate the big races, provide the star names that catapult the sport onto the back pages and into the nation's sporting psyche.
But there's something special about the underdog having their day, and in racing there are countless numbers of those, trainers desperate for the ammunition their talent deserves.
Paddy O'Donnell has one shot at success at the Ebor Festival. The Sky Bet Stayers' Handicap isn't the most prestigious contest of the week, it's the race after the Juddmonte International on day one.
But should Extensio win, well it would provide one of the most popular winners of the four days for turf romantics. So here's hoping.
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