Leo O'Brien, trainer of Fourstardave, dead at 85

Leo O’Brien, a longtime trainer on the New York Racing Association circuit and best known for training New York-bred legend Fourstardave and his brother Fourstars Allstar, died Thursday after a lengthy bout with Lewy Body Dementia, according to his family. He was 85.

A native of Ireland, O’Brien was one of 11 children. He finished school at age 14 and went looking for work when he asked noted Irish farmer Tom Taaffe for a job. Taaffe also trained steeplechase horses.

“I wanted to work on the farm and he said there was nothing open, but he had a vacancy with the horses,” O’Brien once told the New York Racing Association publicity department. “He gave me a three-month apprenticeship and I ended up serving eight years for him.

O’Brien rode steeplechase horses until 1964, when he moved to the United States. He rode steeplechase here until 1976, when he had a spill at Monmouth Park.

After returning to Ireland to train with his brother Michael, Leo O’Brien returned to the U.S. in 1981, when he developed a working relationship with owner Richard Bomze. It was Bomze and O’Brien who campaigned the New York-bred Fourstardave, who won at least one race at Saratoga for eight consecutive years (1987-94). Fourstardave, who raced through his 10-year-old season in 1995, compiled a record of 21-18-16 from 100 starts and earned $1,636,737.

NYRA named a stakes race at Saratoga to honor Fourstardave and the one-mile turf event has become an important Grade 1 fixture at the summer meet.

"Fourstardave was extremely special because he came along at a time when he really needed him and he only had a small amount of horses,” Keith O’Brien, Leo’s son, told the NYRA publicity department. “Fourstardave was kind of obscure breeding, by Compliance and out of an unraced dam. What he became was a source of immense pride to Dad. Just the fact that he came back year-after-year to win in Saratoga, he loved the horse and that he was able to do that for him. Presenting the Fourstardave trophy was always a high point of Dad's summer. It was a huge thing for him."

A few years later, O’Brien trained Fourstarsdave’s full-brother Fourstars Allstar, who in addition to winning 14 races from 59 starts and earning nearly $1.6 million, was the first U.S-based horse to win the Irish 2000 Guineas, which came a week after he won an allowance race at Belmont Park.

“Dad was telling me about this idea when Fourstars Allstar was a 2-year-old and had finished second to a very good horse [River Traffic] at Laurel,” Keith O’Brien said. “He told me he was going to take the horse over to Ireland for the 2000 Guineas. I said, 'What are you talking about, Dad, are you crazy?' But he said to me, 'I think this horse is special, he might be able to do it.' I laughed, like a lot of people did, but he had a plan, and he trained him over the winter for it.”

In 1996, O’Brien trained Yanks Music, a daughter of Air Forbes Won, to win 5 of seven 7 starts, including the Grade 1 Mother Goose, Alabama, Ruffian, and Beldame, the latter being against older fillies and mares. Along the way, she twice defeated Serena’s Song, the champion 3-year-old of 1995. Yanks Music was voted champion 3-year-old filly.

O’Brien, in a career that spanned four decades, won 568 races from 6,477 starters and his horses earned $27,078,739 in purses, according to Equibase statistics. O’Brien stopped training in March 2020, at which time he turned the stable over to Keith.

O’Brien’s daughter Leona, who at one time worked in the NYRA press office, married jockey John Velazquez, a Hall of Fame rider and the all-time leading rider in purse-money won.

O'Brien had a younger brother, Colum, who trained on the NYRA circuit. He died in January 2024.

In addition to Keith and Leona, O’Brien is survived by his grandchildren Lerina, Michael, Darby, Liam, Jacinta, Murieann, and Jonjo.

Funeral arrangements are pending. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations in his name be made to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund and/or the New York Racetrack Chaplaincy.

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