
Share
5th February 2018
10:14am GMT

O'Leary's star obliterated a high quality field in Foxrock. Jack Kennedy's mount coasted around the 2 mile trip, barely having to get out of first gear and landing the spoils with 6 lengths to spare.
He travelled to his jockey's want, barely touched a hurdle and quickened away from his rivals with an irresistible ease.
His owner is well renowned for playing down his horses, however, and his interview on At The Races was true to style.
Matt Chapman, like most of us watching Gordon Elliot's charge on Sunday was blown away by this special showing.
O'Leary was having none of it.
"He's not (special)... He has done no more than what we had probably expected him to do, but he's still not Jesus Christ. But he's going in the right way."Jesus Christ Michael, give the horse some credit. We wanted more. Chapman went for more. He went fishing to see if O'Leary would talk up Jack Kennedy, his number one jockey, and one of the best in Ireland. O'Leary wasn't budging.
Chapman wasn't defeated. He went for Gordon Elliot.
O'Leary's response, delivered with that brilliant mix of articulate arrogance and likeable humour shows why he's one of the best interviewees in the land.
"I don't. I think he's somewhat overweight, not as good looking as me. He's better at training horses than me in fairness and I'm thinking of getting him into roster a couple of pilots.He's a loveable rogue is Michael. A rogue who's always able to talk himself out of sticky situations. Matt Chapman left him reeling. One of the biggest and best characters in horse racing, Chapman is similar to O'Leary in some ways. He's a joker, comes across as a bit of a chancer, but one of those lads that you just know would be unreal craic. He played on O'Leary's Ryanair pilots, who planned a big strike over Christmas. He landed the telling blow. https://twitter.com/AtTheRaces/status/960156204197560325 The Ryanair chief couldn't even muster a response. https://twitter.com/tomquinny2/status/960229993526845441 https://twitter.com/Laurajoy01/status/960154442648694785 https://twitter.com/Dabzee/status/960151854247227392
Explore more on these topics: