O'BRIEN STEALS THE SHOW

Flemington and Barwon Heads-based trainer Danny O'Brien has scooped the pool in Racing.com's Best of the Best awards, claiming two gongs on the opening day.

Rookie of the Season (Equine) - Russian Camelot

It's not hard to mount a case to suggest Russian Camelot is the most exciting horse in Australia.

A Northern Hemsiphere-bred three-year-old, he is BetEasy's $9 favourite for the Melbourne Cup, $11 second favourite for the Caulfield Cup and a $13 chance for the Cox Plate.

That's after just five starts, all of which came during the 2019/20 racing season.

After a brilliant debut win over 1400 metres at Ballarat on October 11, he was carefully handled by O'Brien all the way through to the Group 1 South Australian Derby (2500m), which he won easily despite a wide run in transit.

And punters have quickly anointed him as Racing.com's rookie of the season in the Best Of The Best awards.

The O'Brien-trained G1 winner attracted 52.90 per cent of the vote to claim the award comfortably from star two-year-old Away Game (17.35 per cent).

Training Performance of the Season - Danny O'Brien (Vow And Declare's Melbourne Cup win)

"Vow And Declare has won it for Australia, they're on top of the world."

Matt Hill's call of the 2019 Melbourne Cup will become one of the iconic moments in cup history in years to come.

And the training performance of O'Brien will be talked about for years to come as well.

Up against a field bursting with international stars, Australian-owned, trained and bred Vow And Declare stunned his rivals to claim the nation's greatest race.

That feat earned O'Brien the training performance of the season award in Racing.com's Best Of The Best.

O'Brien and Vow And Declare attracted 31.41 per cent of the vote to hold off Black Heart Bart's upset Underwood Stakes victory as a 100-1 shot (23.13 per cent).

Story by Ryan Roberts for Racing.com