Vincent O’Brien made modern racing

Without Vincent O'Brien, the great Irish trainer who died yesterday aged 92, modern racing as we know it would not exists, argues Greg Wood in the Guardian. "O'Brien enjoyed such sustained success, taking in every aspect of the sport, that his legacy will endure for many decades wherever in the world people meet to race high-class thoroughbreds."

O'Brien understood every aspect of racing, from what it took to train and race a great horse, to the heritage and bloodlines of the animals that came through his operations. "His unparalleled eye for a yearling's potential that launched the Coolmore Stud operation towards its dominant position in Flat racing worldwide," says Wood.

"Indeed, it was the victory of O'Brien's Sir Ivor in the 1968 Washington International that arguably helped to establish the idea that racing could be a global industry. Within a decade, O'Brien was a key figure in the Coolmore business plan, buying horses at major Kentucky bloodstock auctions, turning them into Classic winners and then syndicating them to America for a huge profit."

O'Brien left a family legacy too - his son David won the Derby in 1984 with Secreto, "beating Vincent's horse El Gran Senor by a short-head", while his daughter married John Magnier, who formed Coolmore with her father.

"There have been trainers in the distant past that have saddled more Derby winners than Vincent O'Brien, who died yesterday at the age of 92. Others in more recent times have surpassed O'Brien's three victories in the Arc, his 23 winners at the Cheltenham Festival and the 16 he recorded in English Classics."

But, Wood concludes, "no one else has done it all in a single lifetime, however, and it is hard to believe that anyone ever will again." ·