Five-time Grade 1 winner Tom O’Brien has passed away aged 39 after a battle with cancer. He was less than three weeks away from his 40th birthday.
O’Brien enjoyed success at a high level throughout his career, most notably claiming multiple victories at the top level, as well as two Cheltenham Festival wins and a pair of Welsh Grand Nationals. One of those Chepstow successes is commemorated in Hollywood, as he partnered Dream Alliance to win the race in 2009. His second came courtesy of Elegant Escape in 2018.
Grand Nationals proved his speciality at the time, though he narrowly came up short of winning the biggest of them all at Aintree. He rode McKelvey to finish second in the 2007 renewal, narrowly failing to reel in Silver Birch up the Elbow.
The Wexfordian partnered his first Grade 1 winner aged just 21 in 2007 when he and Souffleur ran out ready winners of the Challow Hurdle at Newbury. Thereafter, he excelled in gaining wins in big novice hurdles, with triumphs aboard Finian’s Oscar and Elixir De Nutz in the Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown before finding his first two-time Grade 1-winning partner, Thyme Hill, who won the Liverpool Hurdle and Kauto Star Novices’ Chase in 2021 and 2022.
The latter year saw his most recent success at the Cheltenham Festival too, as he was aboard Third Wind for Hughie Morrison. They took that year’s Pertemps Final, giving O’Brien a first winner at the meeting in 13 years since Silk Affair won the 2009 Fred Winter.
In all, O’Brien surpassed 1,000 winners in the saddle, enjoying his most prolific season when a conditional in 2006/07: he rode 105 winners that campaign. He retired at the conclusion of the 2022/23 jumps season, his last rides coming at Sandown.
O’Brien is a member of the racing dynasty from Ireland, being the nephew of trainer Aidan. His loss continues a horrendous week of mourning in the racing world after the passing of Australian rider Izzy Neale on Tuesday.