Edward O’Grady, one of the greats of Irish jump racing, has died at the age of 75

Edward O’Grady, one of the giants of Irish jump racing, has died at the age of 75.

Based in Ballynonty in County Tipperary, O’Grady was champion jumps trainer in Ireland for four consecutive seasons between 1977 and 1980 and he staged a revival in the mid 1990s when horses like Sound Man and Ventana Canyon emerged. 

He was Ireland’s most successful trainer at the Cheltenham Festival before Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead arrived on the scene with 18 winners to his name. Mr Midland was his first in the 1974 National Hunt Chase and Sky’s The Limit was his last when running away with the Coral Cup under Barry Geraghty in 2006. 

O’Grady was synonymous with the emergence of JP McManus as a leading owner and the pair teamed up to win the Galway Plate in 1978 with Shining Flame, among numerous other big-race wins together. 

O’Grady took over his father’s training licence in 1972 and he quickly celebrated his first winner when Vibrax, ridden by his cousin Timmy Hyde, won at Gowran Park in January. 

The hugely talented Golden Cygnet shot to stardom for O’Grady later that decade and he scooted away with the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1978, but his massively exciting career was cruelly cut short the following month when he suffered a fatal fall in the Scottish Champion Hurdle. O’Grady hailed him the “most talented horse he had ever trained”. 

Sound Man won back-to-back Tingle Creek Chases at Sandown in 1995 and 1996, while Back in Front followed in the footsteps of Golden Cygnet by winning the Supreme in 2003. 

Pizarro was a controversial winner of the Weatherbys Champion Bumper under Jamie Spencer in 2002 when fending off favourite Rhinestone Cowboy by a neck and then surviving a lengthy stewards enquiry afterwards. 

O’Grady’s final Grade 1 winner was Cash And Go in the Future Champions Novice Hurdle at the 2011 Christmas festival at Leopardstown, while in 2009 Tranquil Sea, in the hands of Andrew McNamara, became the first Irish-trained horse since Bright Highway in 1980 to win the Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham and no Irish horse has won it since. 

O’Grady was a colossus at the Galway Races, too. The aforementioned Shining Flame won the Galway Plate in 1978 and the trainer went on to win three Plates in four years, with Hind Hope and Rugged Lucy winning in 1979 and 1981. Hard Tarquin’s victory in the 1979 Galway Hurdle made him only the fifth trainer to win both the Plate and the Hurdle in the same year.

Drumlargan’s victory in the 1983 Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown always held a special place in O’Grady’s heart, while he won the Irish Grand National in the same year with Bit Of A Skite. 

Other talented horses O’Grady trained in more recent years were Ned Kelly and Nick Dundee, who both wore the famous navy Magnier silks. 

Ned Kelly won 12 of his 27 starts, including the Irish Champion Hurdle in 2002, while Nick Dundee was blessed with huge talent and was cantering when coming a cropper at the third-last in 1999 Royal & SunAlliance Novice Chase after being sent off 5-4 favourite. The race was won by subsequent Gold Cup winner Looks Like Trouble. 

Nick Dundee was never the same horse after that fall but, after winning the Grade 2 Dr.P.J.Moriarty Novice Chase at Leopardstown the month before Cheltenham, O’Grady said he was the “most exciting novice chaser I have trained”.

O’Grady’s final runner proved to be Sovereign Banter, who finished down the field in a sprint handicap on the Flat at Cork last Friday night. His last winner was Our Soldier in a handicap hurdle at Bellewstown earlier this month under amateur Harry Swan.