EVERYONE in racing wants to have their cake and eat it.
And sweet-toothed Fergal O’Brien is not wasting a crumb.
The Cotswolds trainer is on course to shatter his previous best season.
He’s already notched 44 winners at a healthy 20 per cent strike-rate. There’s still more than three months of the season left and O’Brien needs just four winners to top his previous best haul.
Colin’s Sister has rattled up a hat-trick of wins and there has been plenty of success in decent races with the likes of Viva Steve, Master Dee and Druid’s Folly.
The future also looks bright as ten of the wins have come in bumpers from just 36 runs.
It’s a stable cooking on gas. And it’s all fuelled by cake.
The Great O’Brien Bake Off has been keeping the staff stocked up on sumptuous sponges and gorgeous gateaux.
O’Brien, 44, explained: “Someone brought a cake one day and it just took off.
“If people ring up asking if they can see the horses on the gallops, we’ll say yes but you’ve got to bake a cake. They have to be homemade.
“Every Saturday we’ll have cakes — anything between two and six. We had eight once.
“We all love cake, who doesn’t? We get a lot of owners come to see their horses and I think they feel pressurised into baking a cake.
“My two daughters come and stay with me every Wednesday night and that was our ritual, watching the Bake Off on telly.”
It’s unclear if the treats have helped with the large slice of success. But it can’t have done any harm as O’Brien sits in 17th in the trainers’ table — far closer to the golden crust than the soggy bottom.
It comes just 18 months after he moved from his base just off the historic Fosse Way near Northleach to a place down the road he knows well.
He spent 18 years with Nigel Twiston-Davies and now his old boss is his landlord.
He trains just across the road from Twiston-Davies, high above the Naunton Valley in a hot-bed of jumps racing.
Jonjo O’Neill, Kim Bailey, Ben Pauling and Martin Keighley are all little more than a light canter away.
O’Brien, a Victoria sponge fan, said: “We came back in July 2015 and from day one it was like coming home. Our first runner won even though we’d only been here a week. It’s just grown from there.
“We know the place so well so it was easy to fit back in.
“Our first season back here was pretty good. We had 35 winners. That gave us the power to go and buy some nice horses.”
O’Brien is not the only one in familiar surroundings. Head lad Kevin Brown, partial to a cream cake, spent 12 years working for Twiston-Davies and racing secretary Ally Stirling was there for four years.
Business partner Chris Coley, a fan of lemon drizzle, has horses in both yards.
Ex-trainer and chocolate brownie lover Sally Randell, O’Brien’s partner, came in the summer as assistant trainer.
Main jockey Paddy Brennan has become a bigger part of the O’Brien team after Tom George took Adrian Heskin on in the summer.
O’Brien said: “Paddy’s been great. He is riding as well as ever and is always looking at races. He’s very involved.
“The great thing about Paddy is the feedback. We’ve got a very honest relationship.”
The pair have plenty to look forward to, especially in the next few months.
Dual Cheltenham scorer Perfect Candidate is the stable’s first Gold Cup entry.
O’Brien said: “He runs well round Cheltenham. If it ended up being six or seven runners we would be kicking ourselves.
“He’ll also be entered in the National. That would be my aim but the owners Geoff and Donna Keeys would prefer to go to Cheltenham.
“Alvarado has been a great horse for us. He ran a blinder first time out at Cheltenham when he finished sixth. Then he went to the Becher Chase and fell at the second.
“We’re going to try him in the cross-country race.
“We need to find a novice hurdle for Global Stage. I’d like to think he would be able to go for the Albert Bartlett or the Neptune. He’s a brute.
“I was impressed with the way he jumped and laid up and was still there turning in in the Tolworth when fourth.
“Colin’s Sister will have a couple of entries in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle and the novices’ hurdles.”
There are others. Barney Dwan must have broken a mirror at some point. He has been unlucky not to win in three races this season and has the Pertemps as his aim.
Then there’s Wizard’s Sliabh. She won a bumper and her hurdles debut but has attracted attention for other reasons, especially from those without the cleanest of minds.
O’Brien chuckled: “You’ve got to pronounce it right. We have a very good man who does the social media, Simon Gillson. He is involved in a few horses, he named her.
“I had a call from Nick Luck. He said ‘I’ve just opened the paper and I can’t stop laughing’.
“Sliabh is Gaelic for mountain so we’re fully covered but I think the BHA will scrutinise our names from now on.”
Fergal O’Brien is a name punters should take note of. A tenner on all of his runners this season would have returned a tasty £570.
If he could bag a winner on jump racing’s greatest stage it really would be the cherry on top of a great season.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTErKynZpOke7a3jqynqKqkZLWwvtKeqZqbmaO0cH6Vb21waWZksKmxy62cp6CRonqnsdKtoK%2BZnGKzpr7GmqNmp5Kntqa6jKisraSZo7K0ecWeqq2hppa5brzLmqWsZZakv26%2FzqacZqeWYrWqv4ysq5qanJp6tMDAq6pmoZ6YubawyKeeZpmcq66zrcOoZLCgn2KwsMHLnWShmaaaeqJ5wqGYp5%2BVYrynedKcnKedoq58