Noel O’Brien had a gap in his teeth a mile wide. You knew that because he was always smiling. He was one of the people you would always look out for in a room, at a racecourse or to call for a chat because invariably you came away from any engagement with him a little wiser and a little happier.
Racing was his passion. There was little he didn’t know more about within it than anybody else and yet his greatest gift was a childlike curiosity to know your views or thoughts.
I have been with him down the years in company with billionaires and hard-pressed punters; trainers for whom winners were counted in the hundreds and those for whom one or two pounds up or down in Noel’s official handicap ratings could make the difference between that one winner that could turn around a season.
He was happy to share time and thought with each of them. His strength and his immense popularity were based on the fact that he was swayed by none to move away from his core principle of absolute fairness.
How cruel then that he should be taken from us at an earlier stage in life than anyone would consider fair.
His absence from so many places at which we would have shared a smile or a comment over the past year has been hard to bear, and so much harder now with the knowledge that he will not come back again.
One of my fondest memories was of being with him at a launch party for a Fairyhouse Grand National a couple of years back. We were walking out into a field to watch some horses parade and as we were climbing up on a small bank I slipped. Before I hit the ground Noel’s hand was at my elbow.
A steadying presence; a personality that was always so much bigger than his physical frame; a warmth; a smile; a sense that things would be OK.
Noel O’Brien rest in peace. You left the world a better place than you found it. You will be missed perhaps more than you would have ever thought.
