Way ahead of his time

TRIBUTES POUR IN FOR RACING LEGEND O'GRADY

- BY PAUL O'HEHIR

EDWARD O'GRADY was remembered yesterday as a training giant who was “way ahead of his time” — particularly so at the Cheltenham Festival.

The handler, based in Ballynonty, Co Tipperary, and who was champion jumps trainer in Ireland for four consecutive years from 1977 to 1980, has died aged 75.

O'Grady enjoyed almost 1,700 career winners, the first of which came in 1972 and the most recent in a handicap hurdle at Bellewstown earlier this month.

He was a formidable force at Cheltenham and had 18 Festival successes, including the brilliant 1978 Supreme Novices Hurdle winner Golden Cygnet.

Golden Cygnet was fatally injured in the Scottish Champion Hurdle the following month but O'Grady hailed him as the “most talented, he had ever trained”.

Other Festival winners for O'Grady include Pizarro, who landed the 2002 Champion Bumper under flat jockey Jamie Spencer, and the 2003 Supreme scorer Back In Front.

O'Grady put Irish winners on the board at the great festival, long before it was fashionable to do so, and before the dominant Mullins, Elliott and De Bromhead era.