A STABLE RELATIONSHIP – AIDAN AND JOSEPH O’BRIEN
* Aidan O’Brien, 48, is considered one of the world’s best trainers. He set a record this year by training 26 Group One winners in a calendar year
* His son Joseph was a jockey. When aged 19 in 2012, he and Aiden became the first father-son duo to win the English Derby with Camelot
* Joseph stopped riding in early 2016 to focus on a training career. He trains from Owning Hill in County Kilkenny, the property where his grandfather, his mother Anne-Marie and his father all trained before Aidan moved to Ballydoyle, about an hour away
* The senior O’Brien had his first Melbourne Cup runner in 2007 when Mahler finished third. He returned in 2008 but his three-horse assault was a train wreck with Septimus his best-placed runner in 18th with Septimus
* He didn’t return until 2015 when Kingfisher was 19th and Bondi Beach 16th. He ran Bondi Beach again in 2016, finishing 13th
* This year the senior O’Brien started Johannes Vermeer, while Joseph saddled his first two Cup horses – Rekindling and US Army Ranger
* Johannes Vermeer, ridden by Ben Melham, finished second as Rekindling with Corey Brown on board stormed home.
