AIDAN O’Brien is well established as the dominant Irish trainer both at home and abroad and 2014 was another successful campaign for him.

Remarkably, O’Brien was responsible for no less than 31 horses rated 110 or higher in 2014, consisting of nine two-year-olds, 12 three-year-olds and 10 older horses.

In terms of the breakdown of those performances, O’Brien saddled a total of 32 Group or listed winners in Ireland. The highlights were obviously his Group 1 wins, of which he won five of the 12 domestic contests at that level including three of the five domestic classics. He was also responsible for the highest rated two-year-old colt and filly in Ireland courtesy of Gleneagles (116) and Found (117) respectively.

Interestingly, with Found being rated higher than Gleneagles, this represented the first time in 20 years that the Champion Two-Year-Old in Ireland was a filly.

Only Finsceal Beo (119) has achieved a higher rating than Found of all the two-year-old fillies to have raced in Ireland since 1994.

Outside of Ireland, the joint-World Champion Three-Year-Old Australia (127) led the way for O’Brien with his wins in the Derby at Epsom and Juddmonte International at York, but there was plenty more to cheer about.

Leading Light’s (117) stirring win in the Ascot Gold Cup was his Royal Ascot highlight, while Tapestry’s (120) victory over Taghrooda in the Yorkshire Oaks was another highlight that was enough to make her the Champion Three-Year-Old Filly in Ireland.

In terms of a training performance, it was perhaps his campaigning of Adelaide (120) that took centre stage, saddling him to win the Secretariat Stakes at Arlington Park in August and then shipping him to Australia to become the first-ever non-Australian winner of the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in October.

However, as impressive as Aidan O’Brien’s performance was, Dermot Weld enjoyed his best-ever year in his long career in terms of win prize money earned.

On the domestic front, he secured a remarkable 23 Group or listed wins, with the Group 2 Blandford Stakes victory of Tarfasha (113) being the pick.

He also enjoyed a series of successful raids to Britain, with Mustajeeb (117) winning the Jersey Stakes at Royal Ascot, Pale Mimosa (108) winning the Lonsdale Cup at York and Forgotten Rules (113) winning the British Champions Long Distance Cup at Ascot.

While the last-named horse is a particularly exciting staying prospect, arguably Weld’s best prospect for 2015 is Free Eagle (120).

The son of High Chaparral was restricted to just two starts in 2014, and absolutely bolted up in the Enterprise Stakes at Leopardstown prior to finishing an excellent third in the British Champions Stakes on unsuitably soft ground at Ascot.

The sprint division is one that Irish-trained horses have been making real strides in over the course of the last few years and they again played a very prominent role in it.

The Australians led the way in the world rankings with Lankan Rupee (123), but in this part of the world, the Eddie Lynam-trained pair of Slade Power (119) and Sole Power (118) led the way as the top and joint-second sprinters in Europe.

Those two horses spearheaded what was a remarkable season for Lynam, with the pair of them winning four of the five Group 1 sprints in Britain between them.

Away from the two Power horses, it was another great year for the Tom Hogan-trained Gordon Lord Byron, with the globe-trotting gelding becoming the first northern hemisphere-trained winner of a race in New South Wales when winning the George Ryder Stakes at Rosehill in March as well as winning the British Champions Sprint Stakes at Ascot in October.

With a view to the future of the sprinting division, Aidan O’Brien was responsible for three three-year-old sprinters that could well be a big factor in the division in 2015 in the shape of Due Diligence (116), Cougar Mountain (112) and Guerre (108).