O’Brien expecting sprint fireworks from Albert Einstein
By Racing TV
Last Updated: Mon 11 May 2026
Aidan O’Brien is preparing to “flick the switch” with Albert Einstein by running him in the Sandy Lane Stakes at Haydock on Saturday week.
Considered a different league to the rest of last year’s Ballydoyle crop of juveniles, the much-vaunted colt’s lofty reputation has been dented this spring as O’Brien has tried and failed to turn him into a 2000 Guineas contender, with hopes of a Classic bid ended by defeats at the Curragh and Newbury.
However, the trainer always felt the son of Wootton Bassett could ultimately be more comfortable over sprint distances and is ready to put that theory to test in a Group Two contest he won with Little Big Bear three years ago.
“He’s coming. I know everyone is disappointed (with him this season), but we had to go all the little steps with him because he’s a very, very highly-strung horse,” O’Brien said.
“He’s going to go to Haydock for the Sandy Lane and Brussels will go with him.
“We’re nearly there with him, if we’re not there for this one he’ll be there for the next one and he is coming back to six furlongs.
“He doesn’t really know what to do yet as we’ve had the breaks on him the whole time. Ryan (Moore) dropped him out in the Greenham with the hood on and he said he didn’t know what to do, but we’re getting there.
“Our gut was that he was a sprinter, but we still had to go through the motions with him and mentally it was probably no harm to him to do what we did as it was slowing him down.
“The minute we flick the switch with him there’ll be no turning back, but we’re getting closer to touching it!”
Should Albert Einstein end up in the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot, he could well cross paths with his stablemate Charles Darwin.
Winner of the Norfolk Stakes at the Royal meeting last summer, he missed the rest of his two-year-old season and having made a winning return in last month’s Committed Stakes at Navan he will be in action at Naas this weekend.
“Charles Darwin is a good horse, it will be interesting to see how much he jumps up from Navan and he could jump up a lot,” O’Brien.
“He’s going to Naas for the three-year-old sprint (Lacken Stakes).”
On how he compares to Albert Einstein, he added: “That would be interesting. We think Charles is a very good horse, but in the spring of Albert’s two-year-old career we thought all our two-year-olds were useless, other than Albert, so that will give you a little feel of what we were seeing then.
“We thought they were all no good because how could one horse be so much better than all the rest? That is what we thought, because Albert was so much better at two than everything else.
“In the end they were a decent bunch of horses, whereas he got got injured after his second run and we didn’t see him again.
“He always looked very fast, but we went the route of trying to get a mile and slow him down. We tried, but we’re now at the stage where we have to go and do what we thought he was.”
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