Trainers / Owners

Who is Diego Dias?

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Indeed, that was the question on the lips of most observers when the two-year-old Mansa Musa just prevailed, after a sustained duel with the odds-on favourite, Array, in the valuable British EBF 40th Anniversary Maiden Stakes on the opening day of ‘Glorious Goodwood’ on August 1, 2023. Diego Dias is, in fact, a Brazilian-born trainer based in Rathbride, Co. Kildare and Mansa Musa was his first runner on British soil.

Dias did not saddle his first runner, Gaenari, until May 26, 2023 and, although the Inns Of Court filly has yet to win a race, she has finished second three times and collected over £25,000 in prize money. Most recently, she earned £6,000 for finishing a creditable fifth in the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh on August 12, 2023. According to Matt Eves, managing partner of Star Bloodstock, which owns both Mansa Musa and Gaenari, Dias only has ‘five or six [horses] in training’, so few would argue that he has created a highly favourable impression in what are still very early days for his fledgling training career.

A recent addition to the training ranks he may be, but Dias has been preparing young horses for the Curragh-based bloodstock operation since 2019. Prior to taking out his licence, he specialised in ‘breeze-ups’ or, in other words, briefly training two-year-olds, typically at high speed over short distances, so that they are amenable, educated and ready for sale at an appropriate ‘breeze-up’ auction. Speaking after his Goodwood victory, Dias said, ‘I took out the licence this year and that’s my second winner. I like all my horses and the horses I don’t sell at the breeze-ups have to be given another chance by running them.’

 

Diego Dias’ twitter account: https://twitter.com/DiegoDiasracing

Where, and when, did Joseph O’Brien saddle his first Group 1 winner?

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Born on May 23, 1993, Joseph O’Brien is the elder son of Ballydoyle legend Aidan O’Brien and first rose to prominence as a Flat jockey, riding predominantly for his father, between 2009 and 2015. O’Brien Jnr. rode his first winner, Johann Zoffany – subsequently transferred to Australia and renamed ‘Muir’ – at Leopardstown on May 28, 2009, just five days after his sixteenth birthday.

However, granted that he stands 5’11” tall, 9″ taller than an average Flat jockey in the British Isles, Joseph O’Brien was always destined to fight a losing battle against the scales. Nevertheless, in his truncated six-and-a-half-year career in the saddle, he still managed to ride a total of 518 winners, including no fewer than 31 Group 1 winners worldwide. He was Irish champion apprentice twice, sharing the title with Gary Carroll and Ben Curtis in 2010 before winning it outright in 2011, and Irish champion jockey twice, in 2012 and 2013.

In March, 2016, O’Brien told the ‘Racing Post’ that he would no longer be riding and would concentrate, instead, on his new career as a trainer. He was officially granted a training licence in June, 2016, at which point he formally took charge of the family training establishment on Owning Hill, near Piltown, Co. Kilkenny, previously occupied by his father, his mother, Anne-Marie, and his maternal grandfather, Joe Crowley. He saddled his first winner as a trainer, Justice Frederick, ridden by his younger brother, Donnacha, at Gowran Park on June 16, 2016, and wasted little time in opening account at the highest level. On September 11, 2016, his two-year-old filly Intricately, also ridden by Donnacha O’Brien, belied odds of 25/1 to win the Moyglare Stud Stakes at the Curragh, by a short head from Hydrangea, trained by his father.