IT is changeover weekend in Irish racing, the first Grade 1 of the jumps season coinciding with the final day of the flat turf season. The focus here will necessarily switch to the winter game for the coming months but not before covering the biggest story in Irish flat racing: Joseph O’Brien taking his operation to another level in 2026.

O’Brien has the biggest flat yard in the country, so this will necessarily be a story of numbers. Per the useful statistic section on Irishracing.com, O’Brien has had 104 individual flat winners in Ireland this year from 228 individual runners. (Figures quoted in this article are correct through last weekend.)

Both of those are career highs, the winners by a sizeable amount, the runners matching his previous total in 2021. My impression mid-season was that O’Brien’s big season has been powered by bigger numbers, but it was not so.

Instead, the quality of horse improved and presumably the quality of training too. His previous high in terms of individual flat winners in a year had been 86 in 2022, his winner to runner percentage that year being 42% but this year it was 46%.

Three-figure campaigns

For context, there have only been two years in Irish flat racing history where a trainer had more than 100 individual winners, Aidan O’Brien with 106 winners from 172 runners in 2024, and 110 winners from 184 runners in 2018.

Those three-figure campaigns have all come relatively recently and point to how much racing has changed here. There is more of it, yes, but the shape and power that the big yards have has also increased when one considers that 20 years ago, in 2006, the two main flat yards in the county were Dermot Weld, with 56 individual winners from 108 individual runners, and Aidan O’Brien, with 53 individual winners from 125 individual runners.

Joseph O’Brien went through the 2026 Irish flat season with a strike rate of 16.7%, his previous best being a flat 16% in 2022 though figures in the 12s and 13s were more typical. There was terrific consistency too from month to month. After 18 winners in April, he went 22-13-33-13-20-11 in terms of monthly flat winners in Ireland.

Nor was he only doing it in Ireland. O’Brien had 16 flat winners in Britain in 2026, having never managed more than seven in any previous year.

Most of them came in high-quality races, too. He started by winning a Chester Cup, added two classics, three Royal Ascot handicaps (along with two more races at that meeting) and four wins at Goodwood.

There was also success that came further afield. There were multiple group wins in France, topped off by Green Empress landing the Boussac, while Citrus Springs took off a valuable prize at Kentucky Downs, worth $443,550.

Standouts

Several individual horses stand out from the year. Highwayman went from a mark of 76 to winning a Leger in two months, while the likes of Dancing Saxon, Sindria and Enceladus were big improvers at a slightly lower level.

Folsom Blues and Green Empress were star juveniles, while older horses like Trustyourinstinct and even Banbridge were kept sweet to win on the flat. Even seemingly out of sorts types like A Piece Of Heaven and Snapretend came back to form to win good races.

O’Brien’s success was backed by a wide array of owners. 10 different owners had his top 10 money earners this year while the Coolmore influence was relatively small. Looking at the Racing Post data, he had 12 individual runners with some sort of Coolmore connections in 2026, only one of them (Celestial Orbit) among his top 20 earners.

The arrival of Juddmonte horses in the yard was a major boost, not least National Stakes runner-up Monogram, while Al Shira’aa Racing seemed to send the trainer better stock than ever.

What’s next?

The question now is what comes next for Joseph O’Brien? Is 2026 the new normal for the yard or will there be some regression next year? His big year may have been helped by external factors as well as what was going on at Owning Hill, not least Ballydoyle having a low-grade virus during the second half of the season.

He seemingly managed to eat into some of the figures of other major yards too. Both Johnny Murtagh and Paddy Twomey held their own in 2026 when compared to recent years, albeit the latter saw his strike rate drop from some outlandish figures in the past.

Jessica Harrington, Ger Lyons and Dermot Weld saw lower winner totals than in many recent seasons, and will be looking to rebound in 2027, though will likely be in competition with O’Brien for horses, not only at the sales but also from owner-breeders.

JOSEPH O’Brien was not the only yard to have a big 2026 on the flat, and Andrew Slattery is another to have had a highly successful campaign, building on an upward trending trajectory over recent years.

At the time of writing, Slattery has had 47 winners during the flat turf season, well ahead of his previous best of 30 in 2025. His strike rate was 11.9%, his best since 14.9% when the trainer was dealing with much smaller numbers.

Slattery also did it the hard way, with handicaps providing the bulk of his winners, those races hard to win with an average field size of 13 runners during the season about to finish.

Having finished third among all trainers for handicap winners in the 2025 turf season, Slattery improved to top of the table with 35 handicap wins this season, the best tally in a flat campaign since Jessica Harrington had 37 handicap winners in 2021.

Twenty seven individual horses won a handicap for Slattery, eight of them winning twice: Bint Majestic Roi, Chipsrdown, Cisterna, Faoladh, Kitty Bear, Kodi Bear, Lauderdale King and Loughrea. That’s a lot of happy owners.

Excellent figures

From 93 individual horses in 2026, Slattery had 36 individual winners per Irishracing.com, good for a winner to runner percentage of 39%, an excellent figure considering the type of horse the trainer worked with.

That number was only bettered by four yards in the top 20 Irish trainers this season (Paddy Twomey, Ger Lyons, Joseph O’Brien and Willie McCreery).

Perhaps those handicappers will struggle next year when higher in the weights, but Slattery was winning juvenile maidens at the end of the season with the likes of King Christoph, Jabreen and Nation Blaze so will have at least a bit to work with next time while hopes remain high that Loughrea will improve into a stakes performer.

He was one of the more impressive handicap winners of the year in the Cambridgeshire, especially considering it was a premier handicap, and while not quite as good when third in the Concorde, there were reasons to think he is better than that.

That run came on slower ground than he raced on for most of the season, while he seemed to make his move sooner than ideal. He remains unexposed and is good at the Curragh which is always a plus.