The funeral mass for Vincent O’Brien took place in St. Conleth’s Church in
Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, on Thursday, with his son Charles addressing the large
congregation, which included some of the sport’s biggest names.
Among those were
Lester Piggott, Sir Michael Stoute, John Gosden, Pat Eddery, Sir Peter
O’Sullevan, Aidan O’Brien, John Oxx, Jim Bolger, Dermot Weld, Mick Kinane, John
Ferguson, Michael Tabor, John Warren and Johnny Murtagh. Others at the mass for
the legendary figure, who died peacefully at his home in Straffan Monday at the
age of 92, included the President of Ireland Mary McAleese’s and Taoiseach Brian
Cowen’s representatives.
Here is an excerpt from Charles O’Brien’s tribute to
his father:
“For all of his success, he did remain an incredibly humble man. He
never dwelt on what went before, wasn’t interested in the list of past glories.
Tomorrow was all that mattered. He always had time for all of us and, like so
many, he really enjoyed his grandchildren. He was a massively successful and
influential man whose presence on this Earth changed many people’s lives. Plenty
of people have said to us over the last few days that he was their hero. I
guarantee one thing, he was certainly ours.”
Earlier, Father Bruce Bradley’s
words had echoed those sentiments.
“We know we are in the presence of human
greatness of a rare kind, to which no words of mine could do justice,” he said.
“To people of my generation, the name Vincent O’Brien seemed not merely
synonymous with horse racing, but its very embodiment and definition. So that
now he’s gone, it’s almost as if racing itself has died.”