THE day was Good Friday, 1994. A young man - he was a mere 25 years of age - was showing me some potential sale horses in the stables of his father-in-law Joe Crowley. I knew Joe but was meeting Aidan O’Brien for the first time.

Mind you, he was already making a name for himself, having shown prowess in the saddle before taking over the trainers’ licence a year earlier from his wife Annemarie. That day he showed me a number of horses with form that my trainer friend, Bob Buckler, might be interested in. None appealed and we moved on to the next port of call.

My abiding memory of Aidan that day was his civility, and his almost ‘horse-whisperer’ style empathy with all of the horses in the yard. It is something I remember clearly to this day and it has stuck with me.

It was no surprise therefore to me when Aidan burst on to the scene as a flat trainer, moving to Ballydoyle in 1996 and sending out his first flat Group 1 winner that autumn, Desert King landing the Aga Khan Studs National Stakes with the late Walter Swinburn in the saddle.

We now have a trainer in our midst who is a world record holder, Saxon Warrior’s victory in last weekend’s Racing Post Trophy providing Aidan with his 26th Group or Grade 1 winner of the year on the flat, eclipsing a benchmark set by the late Bobby Frankel in 2003. The American great’s stars that year included Aldebaran, Denon, Empire Maker, Ghostzapper, Medaglia D’Oro and Sightseek.

The foresight which led to John Magnier plucking a relatively obscure Aidan O’Brien to take over at Ballydoyle must rate as one of the greatest decisions of his career in racing and breeding. The partnership has seen Aiden shape the racing career of many horses who have gone on to play a significant role in the continuation of Coolmore’s reign as the most significant international powerhouse in breeding.

A listing of all 139 individual horses who have been victorious at Group or Grade 1 level is simply mouth-watering, and they have amassed 297 wins at that level in nine different countries. He has won 36 international Group or Grade 1 races four times or more, and these include races in Ireland, Britain, France and the USA.

Three of his protégés have won seven Group 1s - Minding, Rock Of Gibraltar and Yeats, while the quintet with six won at the highest level is made up of Dylan Thomas, Giant’s Causeway, High Chaparral, St Nicholas Abbey and this weekend’s Breeders’ Cup challenger Highland Reel. Could the latter join the top table before he heads to stud in the spring?

Which of these many stars that have passed through his hands was the best horse Aidan ever trained? That could provide hours of debate. One thing is for certain - the most influential horse he has handled to date was a son of Sadler’s Wells who appeared on the racecourse as a juvenile in 2000, Aidan’s fifth season at Ballydoyle. The colt was named Galileo.

The first of four Group 1 winners produced from the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine Urban Sea, Galileo was bred in the purple. He won a mile maiden on his only juvenile outing, but was hugely impressive and slammed his 15 rivals by an incredible 14 lengths. Not surprisingly he was one of the ‘talking horses’ over the winter.

He lived up to those lofty expectations and won his first five starts in his second season.

Appropriately enough he was the first of Aidan’s six Derby winners at Epsom, his first dual Derby winner and then beat Fantastic Light in the Group 1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. The runner-up that day was to inflict one of just two defeats on Galileo, the pair fighting out one of the greatest finishes to the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

As I write the Coolmore superstar stallion has 13 crops of racing age to date, with 70 Group 1 winners and 264 stakes winners. That’s an average of 5.38 Group 1 winners per crop and 20.23 stakes winners per crop. Just like his trainer, Galileo is only part of the way through his career. Who knows where those figures will end?

Let’s not forget either that 14 of Aidan’s 22 wins at Grade 1 level over jumps were provided by the remarkable Istabraq. Seven individual horses provided the remaining eight, with Cheltenham Festival winner Urubande the only other National Hunt horse to double up.

Putting all of these numbers and landmarks in perspective, it is worth citing the achievements of the brilliant Sir Michael Stoute, a man who has been training for twice as long as Aidan and been champion trainer in Britain a remarkable 10 times. He has saddled more than 100 Group 1 winners in Britain and more than 160 in total.

Whatever way one looks at it, there is simply no denying the genius that is Aidan O’Brien and we can all be grateful to be around to celebrate his remarkable career – to date – and his world record setting year.