Wow!
The Melbourne Cup is one of the world's biggest horse races. Described as the "race that stops a nation", it's basically a public holiday in Melbourne. For international horse racing owners and trainers, it's considered somewhat of a holy grail.
Dermot Weld was the first international trainer to achieve that honour, back in 1993, when Vintage Crop was the first non Australian horse to win the race.
Weld repeated the feat in 2002 with Media Puzzle, but that's been the only Irish success in the race. In fact, outside of Weld's two wins, there have only been three further international wins in the race.
The honour of a Melbourne Cup victory has even eluded the great Aidan O'Brien. While every year, the build up in this part of the world is generally dominated by the leading O'Brien chance, but the closest he has come was a third place in 2007.
This morning, O'Brien got closer again, finishing second after saddling Johannes Vermeer. But after an odyssey of two decades for Aidan O'Brien, he was to be denied victory again... by his son.
Joseph O'Brien, Aidan's son, trained Rekindling to the victory in front of the over 90,000 fans in Flemington Racecourse. The horse got up on Johannes Vermeer in the last 100 metres to take the race away from Joseph's father.
Rekindling, the youngest horse in the race, is the first three year old to win the race since 1941, and it kind of sums up the story of the race. Joseph is just 24 years old, and becomes the youngest trainer to ever win the race.
Completing an incredible day for Irish racing, we also took home third place with Willie Mullins' Max Dynamite.
Mullins also trained the sixth and tenth place runners, meaning Ireland had an astounding five horses in the top ten of the race.
REKINDLING wins the 2017 Melbourne Cup for 24 year old trainer @JosephOBrien2! Watch the full replay here: https://t.co/JwEkauGvOg ??? pic.twitter.com/YZhRw6CBWY
— Sky Racing World (@SkyRacingWorld) November 7, 2017
Joseph O'Brien talks about what it was like to defeat his father. #Rekindling #MelbourneCup pic.twitter.com/bS5uOuY9tP
— TVG (@TVG) November 7, 2017
It looks like the O'Brien dynasty might be with us for a few more generations yet.
