RIP galileo Right: Galileo with stallion man Noel Stapleton
Photo courtesy of Coolmore
We’ve never seen the likes of him before... what has he left us?
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ALILEO DI VINCENZO BONAIUTI DE’ GALILEI was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer. He has been called the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics” and the “father of modern science”. Never has a horse more than lived up to his human namesake than the phenomenon that has been the equine Galileo. He is unquestionably the father of this generation of racehorses, factually the sire of 92 (and counting) Group and Grade 1 winners, 338 stakes winners and 20 Group and Grade 1-producing sires. According to physicist and author Stephen Hawking, Galileo the man was responsible for the birth of modern science; 370 years later Galileo the sire has repeated the feat in equine form and taken racing and breeding to new levels. It is worth recounting his racing career, and reprinting some of the sentences that were used at the time to describe his own racing performances – we have become so accustomed to hearing about the feats of his progeny, it is easy to forget just how good a racehorse he was himself. Sent off the evens favourite for his debut on October 28, 2000, he converted that support to victory with a 14l success, a performance that led trainer Aidan
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“He has the speed of a sprinter and the strength of a miler, and this is something I have never seen before in a horse capable of winning a Classic, over a mile and a half. He is very explosive and very special”
O’Brien to be quoted in the Racing Post saying: “He’s definitely top class and is an exciting prospect.” Galileo’s three-year-old debut in the Listed Ballysax Stakes produced another easy victory, an effort that left Milan trailing in his wake, and the same result was produced in the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial (G3), the son of Sadler’s Wells stretching out and showing off his action on his first encounter with good ground. The Racing Post then hailed Galileo’s subsequent easy Epsom Derby victory as a “magnificent performance” – he came home by the widest-winning margin since 1993 with the 2,000 Guineas winner Golan following him some 3l adrift. “This is a serious horse, who is capable of producing the unbelievable,” declared O’Brien. “He has the speed of a sprinter and the strength of a miler, and this is something I have never seen before in a horse capable of winning a Classic, over a mile and a half. He is very explosive and very special.” The colt’s subsequent Irish Derby win led the Post to exclaim that Galileo was “a superbly athletic performer, he has nothing left to prove at 1m4f, and deserves to go down as one of the finest horses to have completed the Derby double.” He was described in The Independent as being “one of the most impeccably bred horses in training” Over the years, O’Brien has regularly enthused as to Galileo’s progeny’s willingness to race and win,
