Leading Light shines on Town Moor as Magnier eyes history

This was the race that he – and his co-owners Derrick Smith and Michael Tabor – so desperately wanted to win 12 months ago when the history-seeking Camelot was denied Triple Crown immortality by three-quarters of a length.

Defeat for the 2000 Guineas and Epsom Derby winner was even harder to take when it emerged earlier this year that the 2012 St Leger winner was among the horses embroiled in the drugs scandal to envelop Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation.

Yet the most striking aspect about Magnier’s remarks in Doncaster’s horseshoe-shapped winner’s enclosure was his sense of history, and how this motivates him.

In a rare interview, he said that he would love Leading Light, a fourth St Leger win for trainer Aidan O’Brien and a first for the Ballydoyle handler’s jockey son Joseph, to become the first horse in history to win the Doncaster Classic and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s signature Flat race, in the same season.

He and his co-owners – O’Brien senior refers to the triumvirate as “the lads” – also harbour dreams of winning the Triple Crown after coming so close with Camelot. No horse has won the 2000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger in the same season since Nijinsky in 1970.

A statue of Nijinksy stands at the entrance to O’Brien’s iconic Ballydoyle stables and there is just a possibility that recent Leopardstown winner Australia could be the horse of a lifetime – his sire is the great Galileo, still the standard-bearer of the Coolmore stud run by Magnier, Smith and Tabor.

Yet, even though Magnier has estimated wealth of £750m, Triple Crowns cannot be bought. They require a horse with the scope to excel over a mile in the Guineas, and then an extra six furlongs in the St Leger, and then racing’s great imponderable – luck.

Resplendent in his trademark trilby, 65-year-old Magnier told the Yorkshire Post: “You don’t often get a chance to go for the Triple Crown, that is why last year was so disappointing, and it still is. It hurts. It had been so long since Nijinsky. To get a horse even to have a chance, you need to win the Guineas and then the Derby.

“One step at a time before we talk about Triple Crowns next year but for me it would be the ultimate.

“It was a shame that Camelot couldn’t manage it last year as everyone wanted him to win... the rest is history.”

This was a day of contrasts. Magnier could not conceal his disappointment 12 months ago when a visibly shellshocked Joseph O’Brien returned to the spot reserved for the runner-up.

Many would have blamed the jockey for being too slow to respond to Encke’s winning move, but the reason Ballydoyle is the most successful stable in the world – and Coolmore the foremost stud – is because of its stability.

Their only failing appears to be the customary post-race photograph – there were chaotic scenes as Leading Light’s co-owner Smith, a former Ladbrokes training director, had to repeatedly summons Magnier. They’ve had plenty of occasions to practice the choreography.

There was then another delay as O’Brien, the victorious trainer, then ushered forward various members of his extended family. He had another moment of acute discomfort when his son put the St Leger cap – the memento traditionally presented to the winning jockey – on his head.

There was a steely look in the eye of Magnier, a one-time co-owner of Manchester United during one of the most acrimonious periods of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign, when he caught sight of his trainer’s predicament.

He was certainly not going to take part in any tomfoolery when there was the small matter of calculating his percentage of the horse’s winnings with Ladbrokes supremo Mike Dillon.

“I’ve always thought Leading Light would be a St Leger horse,” added Magnier.

“He won the Queen’s Vase well at Royal Ascot; the challenge was coming here without a prep run because of quick ground. We thought he had a good chance in the race but you can’t be confident about winning a Classic.”

Asked if the St Leger had always been the objective, he said: “As the saying goes, ‘that was the plan’. We’ll have to supplement for the Arc. That would be a special. We have nothing to lose.”

As Aidan O’Brien assembled his family, he noted modestly: “It’s a big team effort and we’re a very small part of it.”

He’s right in that he cannot excel without horses like Camelot, York’s Juddmonte winner Declaration Of War and now Leading Light. Yet John Magnier would be the first to admit that Ballydoyle and Coolmore need O’Brien’s relentless attention to detail. It’s why they’re an irresistible force, even more so with racing’s great frontiers in their sights.