Horse Racing: Brian O'Connorlooks back on another outstanding year of racing, both at home and abroad, for Irish racehorses, trainers and jockeys under both codes.

Those motivational jargon spouters who preach that standing still really means taking a step backward will probably mutter about the state of Irish racing at the end of 2007. And it's true that there is more than a touch of "as you were" about the game.

Just as 12 months ago, the year drew to a close with "drug hell" headlines about Kieren Fallon and acres of newsprint devoted to the unfortunate soap opera his career has turned into. The chain of events stretching from the dramatic collapse of that race-fixing trial at the Old Bailey to news just 24 hours later of a positive drugs test was dizzying from the outside. For Fallon himself, the impact must be crushing.

Also, just as at the end of last year, an unbeaten colt by Coolmore's latest super stallion Galileo enters winter quarters as an overwhelming favourite for the 2,000 Guineas and Derby. New Approach emulated his former stable companion Teofilo exactly with five starts, ending up with a narrow but comprehensive success in the Dewhurst Stakes.

The impression made was enough for Sheikh Mohammed to purchase a half share in New Approach in September and then buy him outright from owner-trainer Jim Bolger in a deal that no doubt will mean the diversion of more than a few barrels of Dubai's best.

What both the Sheikh and Bolger will fervently pray for over the winter is an avoidance of the sort of bad fortune that meant Teofilo never got to race in 2007.

With his great rival Holy Roman Emperor having gone down the tax-free love route at stud before the season had hardly begun, there is ample evidence of the danger in counting too many chickens half a year ahead of the classics.

But with New Approach joined by a powerful squad of three-year-old prospects in Dermot Weld's stable, and the strength in depth of Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle yard, the outlook again looks bright for 2008.

That perennial strength in Ballydoyle has rarely been better evidenced than by the eight horses O'Brien was able to throw at the Derby last June, and though Authorized was a five-length winner to provide Frankie Dettori with a memorable Epsom triumph, O'Brien's ability to wring the maximum out of his horses then got a rare advertisement when Soldier Of Fortune turned himself into an Irish Derby champion, leading home a one-two-three for his champion trainer at the Curragh.

If it was a case of "steady as she goes" for Irish horses at the top end of the flat game, then the doubters got a bit more ammunition in the jumping sector, where "only" five winners at the Cheltenham festival provided a perceptible sense of anticlimax among the hordes of fans who make the annual trek to the Cotswolds.

There were certainly no championship clean sweeps and double-figure tallies this time round as the home team, headed by the brilliant Gold Cup winner, Kauto Star, struck back with a vengeance.

A Gold Cup-King George-Betfair Chase treble by Kauto Star earned the Paul Nicholls team a £1-million bonus. With a Tingle Creek triumph into the bargain, the horse exhibited a top-flight versatility that brought to mind Desert Orchid, and Ruby Walsh rose to the Gold Cup challenge with a big-race ride that confirmed the Kill-born champion as among the best jump jockeys of the last few decades.

Voy Por Ustedes won the two-mile champion chase but Irish domination of the Champion Hurdle continued, although hardly with the horse that Irish punters expected.

The two proven ex-champions Brave Inca and Hardy Eustace ended up trumped by the unheralded Sublimity, who used the flat speed he showed to win Stakes races for Michael Stoute to herald a change of the hurdling guard.

It was an astonishing triumph for the Maynooth-based trainer John Carr, whose performance in guiding Sublimity through a low-key preparation indicated a sureness of touch that bodes well for a possible repeat at the festival in March.

If Carr's name was unknown to many of the general public, then the name Carberry in the saddle was reassuringly familiar. But instead of the champion jockey Paul or his amateur champion sister, Nina, it was another sibling, Philip, who notched a success that even eluded his famous father, Tommy.

Any shadow Carberry jnr had laboured under up to then vanished as Sublimity passed the post. There was a similarly assured post-race performance by the rider, whose reluctance to engage in the traditional flag-waving on the way back to the winners' enclosure was as heartwarming as the uncomplicated joy shown by the other winning connections.

Just a few weeks later the ability of the jumping game to throw up major success for small outfits was shown again as Silver Birch provided a fairytale victory in the Aintree Grand National. A former Welsh National winner that was sold out of Paul Nicholls's yard because of persistent injury, Silver Birch was nursed back to peak form by his Co Meath-based trainer, Gordon Elliot.

The fact that Elliot's fledgling career hadn't even included a winner in Ireland up to then no doubt helped many to ignore Silver Birch's claims in the world's most famous horse race. But it did not prevent a perfect outcome for the Elliot team and another Irish success at Aintree.

On the home front there was an emotional success in February's Hennessy at Leopardstown for Beef Or Salmon, who came from an apparently impossible position to overhaul The Listener in the shadow of the post.

But Butler's Cabin gave Tony McCoy, Jonjo O'Neill and JP McManus a victory in the Irish National at Fairyhouse over Easter, a cross-channel-based victory that was backed up at Punchestown when Neptune Collonges scored in the Gold Cup for the Paul Nicholls team.

In comparison the Curragh classics turned into a home benefit bar Cockney Rebel's victory in the 2,000 Guineas. Geoff Huffer's colt added to a spectacular triumph at Newmarket and it completed a hat-trick for the French jockey Olivier Peslier, who had also won the Guineas on Desert Prince and Saffron Walden.

Finsceal Beo became just the second filly to complete the Newmarket-Curragh 1,000 Guineas double having only just missed out on an unprecedented treble when narrowly beaten in the French Guineas by Darjina.

From midsummer on, however, Aidan O'Brien's team got into top gear, Soldier Of Fortune's Derby triumph added to by Peeping Fawn's reversal of Epsom form with Light Shift in the Oaks. Her progress from multiple maiden defeats to multiple Group One winner was one of the stories of the summer.

The only blank on O'Brien's classic CV in these islands was duly filled in the Curragh St Leger as Yeats edged out his stable companion Scorpion. However, despite a heavy weight collection of Group One stars, there was little doubting Dylan Thomas's position as O'Brien's, and Ireland's, horse of 2007.

A 10-race season included a Group One triumph in the Prix Ganay in April and ended with an unfortunately anti-climactic run in Hong Kong in December. Along the way, other top-flight wins included a King George rout at Ascot, a second Irish Champion Stakes success and, best of all, a first Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe for O'Brien with a dramatic defeat of Youmzain at Longchamp.

A rare low point was a subsequent defeat in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Monmouth Park but that paled in comparison to just 50 minutes later when the mercurial George Washington ran in the Classic on dirt and sustained fatal injuries in the finishing stretch.

The knee-jerk reaction was to blame a combination of dirt track and weather that turned the New Jersey course into a mudbath. The blame game was off the mark; it might not have looked pretty but Americans race on "slop" all the time. Gorgeous George was the sole bad injury of the meeting - a cruel reminder of how fragile the thoroughbred really is.

The incident increased calls in America for more synthetic surfaces and at last Ireland got one of its own this year with the opening of Dundalk's €38-million floodlit track. Already it has changed the face of flat racing, with the season now extended to December and starting in February.

It's a timely reminder that the game is constantly evolving. And in a golden period for racing in Ireland, standing still doesn't appear too shabby at all.

What we already knew . . .

That Aidan O'Brien really is some kind of genius. His main classic hope, Holy Roman Emperor, never even made it to a racecourse and still the champion trainer mopped up in 2007.

What we learned . . .

Big-money races don't draw crowds in Ireland. The Goffs Million day at the Curragh in September was Europe's richest ever race day. Fewer than 7,000 showed up.

What might happen . . .

A possible classic clash to savour between Jim Bolger's New Approach and Aidan O'Brien's Jupiter Pluvius in the 2,000 Guineas.