THIS week I have taken a look at the 16 winners of the Phoenix Stakes trained by Aidan O’Brien and sent into battle from Ballydoyle. These wins have come from the last 20 runnings of our first Group 1 race of the season for juveniles. The enormity of the achievement is hard to convey, given that Aidan is the most successful trainer at this level to ever operate in Ireland. I feel that these victories are taken for granted.

If a Premier League soccer player scored a goal in 16 of the first 20 games of the season the newspapers and sports programmes would cover it extensively. Yet at the weekend Irish racing was relegated to the junk box, the national broadcaster failing to give it the recognition it deserved.