Racing: Triumph calls young achievers: Anne Marie and Aidan O'Brien are leading the way to the Festival for a new generation of Ireland's trainers. John Cobb reports

AMONG those making their first visit to the Cheltenham Festival when the season's most strenuous racing and revelry commences exactly a month from today will be a 23-year-old from a corner of Co Kilkenny, called Anne Marie O'Brien. What will separate her from the throng of debutantes is that she will be there to saddle half a dozen contenders, including three with clear chances in the Triumph Hurdle. Despite her lack of years she has, with the help of her husband Aidan, sent out more winners in Ireland this season than any other trainer.

With 40 winners on the board, seven more than their nearest rival, Noel Meade, and with many familiar names further down the table, the old order has been swept away. At 29 per cent, the O'Briens' strike-rate is better than Martin Pipe's in Britain.

The Festival will be the first occasion on which their runners have been put to the test outside Ireland and their three Triumph aspirants lead the way. William Hill make one of them, Autumn Gorse, third favourite for the race at 14-1 and quote the others, Loshian and Pharfetched, at 20-1 and 33-1 respectively.

The prices are cautiously slim for such a competitive race, with the bookmakers revealing the sort of respect they once showed for another young jumps trainer with the surname O'Brien, but the Christian name of Vincent.

Let there be no confusion though. There is no shortage of O'Briens in Ireland - there are six separate ones listed as racehorse trainers alone - and Anne Marie and Aidan are not related to the man who trained so many greats from Cottage Rake and Hatton's Grace in the Forties, through Nijinsky, Alleged and El Gran Senor to Royal Academy in the Nineties. But while Vincent has wound down his string to single figures, and his son Charles has moved away to The Curragh to try his hand on his own, Anne Marie is part of a vigorous training team for which the brightest hours lie ahead.

The accent is certainly on the word team, with Anne Marie's father, Joe Crowley, from whom she took over the stable, and her mother, Sarah, also playing significant roles. She also has five younger sisters who ride out and help out when they are at home. Comparisons are not misplaced with other training regimes which have profited from family support: the Dickinsons, Rimells and Reveleys are notable examples.

'It's a real family stable, the whole thing is stamped with it,' John Geraghty, the owner of Autumn Gorse, says. 'They work tremendously hard and if you don't catch them by 7.30 or 7.45 in the morning then they're gone for the day, out working. Everything there is pretty spartan. They're going through everything the tough way.'

Aidan O'Brien is also 23, and at an age when most people are still free of responsibilities the pair seem to thrive on running a 40 horse-power stable. 'We love what we're doing and the day just flies by,' Anne Marie says. 'We work through until 9.30 and that doesn't leave much time or energy for going out. In any case, neither of us drinks or smokes and never did.'

Those are traits which they share with Jim Bolger, who had the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner, St Jovite, in his care last year, and Aidan O'Brien in his care for three years. He could not be more effusive in praise of his former assistant.

'He's a quick learner, very intelligent, a very popular young man,' Bolger says. 'His industry and dedication are tremendous. I'd have done anything short of marrying him to keep him working for me.'

While the woman that Bolger lost out to takes care of the paper work, Aidan's job is with the horses and he has adopted a progressive approach to training. 'Their minds are the most important thing, making sure they come out of races as if they hadn't had them,' he says.

Joe Crowley, now 63, has the role of buying the horses. 'He's a quiet, little man, a fountain of sense,' Geraghty says. 'He can make animals do anything. He had a dog that he would tell to bring in the two-year-olds and the dog would go off and separate them from the rest.'

It was Crowley who bought, brought on, and eventually sold on a young horse named after the hill where they still work their string today, the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Bregawn.

But Anne Marie's part in the training and her success in the saddle when partnering the stable's bumper runners, should not be underestimated. 'This might be only her second season as a trainer but she's been round horses for years,' Geraghty says. 'She's been riding since she was a wee thing.' Nor does it do her justice to saddle her with the label 'former model', the legacy of a short stint in front of the camera which was no more than a hobby. Having exchanged catwalks for horsewalks, her recent achievements are all that count now.

But on cold, wet mornings would she not rather be somewhere else? 'We've put an awful lot of work into this,' she says. 'And we've already seen the bad side as well. From January to July we had very few runners and very few winners.'

That has all changed since last summer and they are building more stables to cater for their popularity. 'We've never had a problem getting horses,' Aidan says. 'We're full all the time, thanks be to God.'

Geraghty offers an explanation: 'For a young couple they're extraordinary. They look after their owners with magnificent hospitality.'

That will do them no harm as they increase their band of two- year-olds and go in search of the bigger booty of the Flat. When they do they will be a threat to all.

'I'm sure they will become a force on the Flat,' Bolger says. 'But I hope it's later rather than sooner.'

(Photograph omitted)