Melbourne boy Danny O’Brien grew up with the Golden Slipper being that mythical race in Sydney.
He has only been to a couple of Golden Slippers, such is the life of a horse trainer of being where his horses are. But Saturday, he could be the centre of attention and history at Rosehill.
Australian racing’s Grand Slam of the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Golden Slipper has only been won by seven trainers and eight jockeys.
O’Brien sits on the edge of joining a club that includes Waller, Freedman, Smith, Cummings and Hayes by two if Closer To Free can win the world’s richest two-year-old prize on Saturday.
It has been a fairytale rise for Closer To Free in past couple of months and it delivers O’Brien to a fantasy destination, he didn’t think was possible this year.
“When I grew up, the Golden Slipper was that race you dream about because it seemed so far away,” O’Brien said.
“It’s up there in Sydney, and because I’m from Melbourne, the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup and Cox Plate seemed more attainable.”
“I used to watch it on TV, and the Golden Slipper was all very Sydney, glitz and glamour.”
“It was a mythical kind of thing, like the US Masters that I always watched.”
“You never thought you would get there, but I could tell you what happened in every one for the past 20 years.”
“Somehow, we are there with a horse I didn’t have until the end of January.”
O’Brien is trained as a lawyer, he completed a law-commerce degree at Monash University, but training racehorses has proved his profession.
As young man, O’Brien toiled in the Bart Cummings stable on the hill above Flemington, learning where his destiny would be.
“I’ll work there in holidays and halfway through uni I thought this is what I want to do,” O’Brien will tell you.
And he does it very well.
His stable is not the biggest in country, but punches above its weight division in terms of success.
Master O’Reilly in the Caulfield Cup, Shamus Award in a Cox Plate and the jewel of Vow And Declare, an Australian winner of the Melbourne Cup.
They have O’Brien ready to join an elite company. The only piece is the mythical Golden Slipper.
The Grand Slam names go beyond the track. Legends Bart Cummings and Colin Hayes. The modern-day greats of David Hayes, Lee Freedman and Chris Waller. Jack Denham and Maurice McCarten, the first man to complete the slam, round out the group.
“Working for Bart, you were in awe, and to join him in that group would be amazing,” O’Brien said.
“You need to have the opportunities to do it and make the most of them.”
“I always say that nothing prepares you for winning the Melbourne Cup. It changes you in the eyes of everyone else in the country.”
“But the Slipper is the next biggest race for me because it is the right horse at the right time and getting the preparation right.”
With Master O’Reilly, Shamus Award and Vow And Declare it was a reward for planning, Closer To Free has just evolved.
O’Brien planned campaigns with three big names, but with Closer To Free it has been a case of what’s next.
“Master O’Reilly it was plan a year out and we got in the week before [the Caulfield Cup] in the Herbert Power and peaked at the right time,” O’Brien remembered.
“Shamus Award was a maiden but the spring had been planned around the Caulfield Guineas and the Cox Plate. He got in when Atlantic Jewel was scratched, and I was very confident he had the right preparation.”
“Vow And Declare was similar, we had the Melbourne Cup as a goal, but all spring we were waiting to make sure he was in the field. He knew he was good enough to win.”
O’Brien has only had Closer To Free in his stable for eight weeks and he has proved good enough.
He has had two race starts, two barrier trials and four gallops to be one of the rawest Golden Slipper talents.
“He arrived at Flemington the Saturday before the Blue Diamond Prelude, and I went and swam him myself, and he was like an older horse that had done it all before,” O’Brien said.
“I was thinking the Talindert Stakes with him, but I put an entry in for the Prelude. We galloped on the Wednesday, and it was good enough to run him on Saturday, and he came out and won.”
“He had a Blue Diamond, so it was easy to know where to go next. But his gallop before that was better again.”
Closer To Free was a brave Blue Diamond runner-up, but has just kept improving, making the choice to come to Sydney and pay the $150,000 Golden Slipper late entry an easy one.
“They say good horses train themselves and with Closer To Free, I have been a passenger along for the ride,” O’Brien said.
“He has had to show us he is handling it and everything we have asked of him he has done.”
“The barrier trial with Jamie [Melham] on was another tick. There was juice in the track, and he got on his Sydney leg and cornered like a Ferrari.”
“His gallop on Tuesday was better again. I can’t see him not running well because he is just a natural.”
