RACING lost one of its most popular and distinctive characters this week with the passing of Oliver Brady.

To say he was a character tells so little of the man. He was a giver and and entertainer and above all a fighter, fighting his corner on the race track and various afflictions off it.

Even through the numerous times when you heard Oliver wasn’t well, you expected that, like a Brady-trained horse he might still defy the odds. It caught up with him eventually but not before he, along with Rita Shah and the Shabra Charity had done numerous good works for cancer, cardiac and eye patients, and the impoverished children in Kenya, raising huge sums each year.

The racetracks will be poorer for his passing. With cheap purchases he was never afraid to take on all-comers.

Victories going back to the Graham Bradley ridden Gazalini at Punchestown were to be loudly hailed and so were the stories surrounding each successful tilt at the “big boys”.

Balapour, a neck second in the County Hurdle, and Baron De Feypo, third in the Coral Cup were the closest he came to a treasured Cheltenham winner.

After the Coral Cup in 2007, the connections of Burnoakboy might have thought they had the winner’s enclosure to themselves in their hour of victory but Brady and the Baron were there before them and the winner played second fiddle to the theatre as Oliver held court.

He shared his track winners with all present, “Youse are my people,” was the frequent cry. “We’ll show the big boys how it’s done.”

He was loud and proud and you never knew what he’d come out with but people loved him for that.

Many of racing’s most respected owners and trainers and sportsmen in general gave their time to appear on the panel of the pre-Cheltenham night in the Glencarn Hotel, in Castleblayney, and more often than not risked a Brady wisecrack flying their way.

You never knew what or who would appear at that pre-Cheltenham extravaganza, no more so than when former racehorse Pablo emerged from a snowy Castleblayney night to stride through the Glencarn ballroom to show Matt Chapman that he was still alive and seeking an “armchair” jockey.

We should say Rest in Peace but somehow the words rest and leaving us in peace don’t sit well with Oliver Brady. Better to wish, for all the good that he did for so many, may he enjoy his eternal reward.