In Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong they were celebrating the Year of the Ox but racing had something extra; another consonant and a horse who would take the sport to another dimension.

John Oxx has the appearance of a scholar allied to an IQ that probably reads like your Lottery numbers and he hit the jackpot in 2009 as Sea The Stars pushed the boundaries to points where others may not reach for many years.

Tipsters have been part-and-parcel of Derby day since it all began in 1780, from the flamboyance of Prince Monolulu with his rallying cry of “I gotta horse” to the slightly dodgy-looking types who would accost the unwary outside the track with racecards containing winners – for a price.

However, it was the cryptic clue delivered at St Conleth’s Church in Newbridge, Co Kildare, on the Thursday before this year’s race that proved the most prescient one.

The congregation had gathered for the funeral of Vincent O’Brien, the six-time Derby-winning trainer, and when they rose to sing the hymn How Great Thou Art, the more alert may have realised that the man credited with being the greatest trainer of all time had delivered a final Derby winner with a third line of “I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder.”

The slate-grey skies that hung over Epsom did not deliver thunder but Sea The Stars sent the sparks flying when he won the Derby. And when Michael Kinane slipped from the saddle in the winner’s enclosure at Epsom, he and Oxx shared a brief, private moment before the rest of humanity invaded. Kinane’s summary was succinct. “This is one of the greats,” he said and that opinion was vindicated through the rest of a glorious summer that brought an unprecedented string of victories in the 2000 Guineas, Derby, Eclipse, International and Irish Champion Stakes and culminated in that final flourish in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.      

Aside from Oxx’s master class as a trainer in the art of keeping the brilliant edge on such a brittle weapon as a three-year-old colt, reaching the peak of performance every month for a half-year, there was also Kinane. Thirty-four years on from riding his first winner he poured all of that experience into his ultimate winner and never more so than in the Arc.

Before the Derby, Oxx had spoken of “the invisible brick wall near the furlong pole” which he worried might be the limitations of his colt’s stamina. Weighing in at over 520 kilos, Sea The Stars was simply a magnificent wrecking ball as he blasted through that imaginary barrier and all others put in his path.

Aidan O’Brien had attempted to beat him in the Derby by running six horses – half the field – without making a race of it and then spent the summer engaging in a new sport – tag-team racing. First it was Rip Van Winkle who – after chasing shadows in the Guineas and the Derby – almost got on terms in the Eclipse only to be swatted away as Sea The Stars clocked the fastest time in the race for 40 years without being truly pushed. In York’s International Stakes, O’Brien had all bases covered by providing three of the four runners and Mastercraftsman provided something close to a test even making Kinane raise his whip, after Sea The Stars had eased into second place at no more than a canter just when Johnny Murtagh kicked on Mastercraftsman.

Sea The Stars went from a length and a half down with a furlong to run to a length up at the line and the course record was in bits.          

O’Brien picked up the bits from Mastercraftsman, added Derby runner-up Fame And Glory, threw in three pacemakers and reloaded the cannon but could only watch as Sea The Stars blew them all part in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown, the only surprise being the relatively small crowd that came to watch the horse’s sole appearance in Ireland this year. However, it was his final away fixture, the Arc at Longchamp, that provided Sea The Stars with his toughest test and gave an idea of just reserves this extraordinary colt had to call upon.

The first battle that Kinane had to win was with the horse’s own exuberance as he pulled hard in the early stages and was then shuffled back half way through the field by the home turn.  This was the point when those pretentions to greatness might be called into question, but the answer was emphatic.  

Trapped on the rail in the home straight, Kinane found himself five lengths behind Stacelita as the filly was set alight by Christophe Soumillon to collar the pacemakers. Kinane’s only option was to angle left for a gap between Stacelita and Dar Re Mi, but first he had to make up the ground.

Three hundred metres from the winning post in the Arc is a rapidly diminishing distance but Kinane, who had the nerve-ends removed at birth, guided Sea The Stars through and that ground-devouring stride did the rest, turning a two-length deficit into a two-length lead inside 200 metres, easing up at the line.

That moment of perfection marked the parting of the ways for the triumvirate as Sea The Stars was retired from racing and Kinane decided that the top of the world was the best place from which to announce the end of his own career.

Oxx carries on but it is in the near-certain knowledge that everything will be something of an anti-climax now. Not that he is complaining. “You can’t expect to have a horse like Sea The Stars,” he said, as if still somewhat awed that the horse had come into his life. “No-one could have planned it, the way he just developed this year. He’s just one of the greats.

“Every race was a big race but it became very important for him to win every race if he was going to be recognised as one of the greats of Thoroughbred history. It became a little bit more nerve-racking as we got near to the Arc. But he made it easy. He had such a great constitution, such great courage, determination and temperament that he made the whole thing look easy.”

“He’s achieved what no other horse has done but, to him, it was just stroll in the park.”

It was indeed the year of John Oxx but Sea The Stars may be the horse of many years to come.

Paul Wheeler