Edward O'Grady, one of Ireland's greatest jumps trainers, has died following a short illness. He was in his 76th year.
He is best known in racing for his success at the Cheltenham Festival in the 1980s and '90s, where he had 18 winners, many of them owned by J.P. McManus.
On Monday morning his family issued the following statement through Horse Racing Ireland: "It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Edward O’Grady, who passed away peacefully yesterday evening at St James’s Hospital, surrounded by his family.
"Edward was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also one of the most respected and successful racehorse trainers of his generation.
"Over the course of an extraordinary career that spanned more than five decades, Edward trained just shy of 1,700 winners under rules. His name became synonymous with Irish National Hunt racing, and he was a formidable force at Cheltenham and across the racing world.
"Beyond the winners and the headlines, Edward was a man of deep intelligence, sharp wit, and remarkable warmth. He had friends on every continent, a story for every occasion, and a lifelong passion for the sport, the hunting field and everything equestrian."
Started young
Based in Ballynonty, near Thurles in Co Tipperary, he began training at 23 years of age in 1972, taking over from his late father, Willie, who had been a champion jockey in the 1930s.
“I was married on the 3rd of January and then my father passed away on the 13th of January. I sort of went from being a student with a £300 student overdraft to being married, with a widowed mother and a host of employees, all in a blink of an eye. It was a bit of a shock to the system,” O’Grady told The Irish Field in a recent interview.
Despite a sickness in the yard which wiped out virtually all of his horses, O'Grady quickly established himself as one of the country's top trainers, enjoying notable big race success.
In March 1974 he had his first Cheltenham Festival winner when Mouse Morris rode Mr Midland to victory in the National Hunt Chase. The following August, Gay Future, a horse trained by O'Grady, was involved in an attempted coup by an Irish betting syndicate. O'Grady was one of four people arrested during the police investigation but the charges against him were dropped. In 2020, The Irish Times described it as "one of racing’s most daring scams was almost pulled off." It was depicted in the 1980 film Murphy's Stroke, with Pierce Brosnan playing O'Grady. The trainer rarely if ever spoke about the controversy even though it sealed his iconic status among racing fans.
Golden Cygnet
He soon became established as the leading National Hunt trainer in Ireland. He regarded Golden Cygnet to be the best horse he ever trained. Golden Cygnet won the Supreme Novices' Hurdle in 1978 by a wide margin but died following a fall at Ayr a month later.
“In those days, 99% of the Cheltenham crowd were racing aficionados and they were just in awe of what they’d seen," O'Grady said. "It was breathtaking. I’m biased but he was probably one of the greatest hurdlers of all time. To lose him in the Scottish Champion Hurdle that same season was just tragic really. He had two of the best hurdlers of all time in Sea Pigeon and Night Nurse, cooked stone cold before he fell at the last. It was a tragedy for the owners and everyone in the yard that he could never reach his potential.”
The same year O'Grady won the Galway Plate with Shining Flame and in 1979 he completed the Plate-Hurdle double with Hind Hope and Hard Tarquin respectively. Rugged Lucy won a third Plate for the trainer in 1981.
He trained Mister Donovan to win the Sun Alliance Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1982 for J.P. McManus, a result which McManus still describes as being critical to his surivival in the game.
Drumlargan won the 1983 Whitbread Gold Cup, which O'Grady described as "the most memorable win of my career". In the same year Bit Of A Skite proved victorious in the Irish Grand National.
Around this time O'Grady switched his attentions to flat racing and it ruled him out of winning big jumps races for approximately 10 years.
He explained: “The majority of my owners were farmers and farming took a frightful downturn towards the end of the 70s. The first thing to go was the horse. So I changed direction and went into the flat which I have to say, while I never had anything like the success I had over jumps, it was successful financially. We were one of the first to sell horses to Australia and America, and I learned a lot. It got a little bit boring I suppose. I missed the buzz of winning good races."
Back on top
He returned to the limelight in the mid-1990s when Mucklemeg (Champion Bumper) and Time For A Run (Coral Cup) completed a daring Cheltenham Festival double in 1994. Sound Man won two successive Tingle Creek Chases (1995 and 1996), and Blitzkrieg had earlier captured the Victor Chandler Chase in 1991.
Sacundai, with Ruby Walsh aboard, captured the Martell Cognac Aintree Hurdle in 2003. In the same year, Back In Front won the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham and the Evening Herald Novice Hurdle at Punchestown.
Pizarro amd Sky's The Limit were both Cheltenham Festival winners and multiple Grade 1 winners for him around the same period.
More recent success came in 2009 when Tranquil Sea ridden by Andrew McNamara became the first Irish-trained horse since Bright Highway in 1980 to win the Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
He continued having a steady stream of winners every season right up to this month, his final winner, Our Soldier, coming at Bellewstown on July 5th.
In 2022, in an interview with The Irish Field to mark his 50th year as a trainer, O'Grady said: “I think we were running for £203 prize money for a race when I started. And of course there was no percentage for trainers or jockeys.
“I still think there’s room for everybody today. Most trainers now get a chance to win the odd battle but they certainly won’t win the war. But if winning the odd battle can keep them afloat then they’ll survive.
“I think this is the way the world has gone. Look at all the lovely shops on the high street in Thurles and Clonmel, they’re all in trouble because you’ve got all the multinationals like the Lidls, the Aldis, the Tescos, all with free car parks. I don’t think racing is any different. That’s the way it is and you just have to try and hope to have a good horse because there’s nothing like success.”
O'Grady's first wife Judy [Sweeney] died in 2010. His second wife, Maria Anderton, whom he married in 1999, was killed in a fall while out hunting with the Tipperary Foxhounds in November 2017.
He is surivived by his third wife, Kay Russell, children Jonathan, Amber, Lucy, Mimi and Rosie Mae.
The following funeral notice is taken from rip.ie
The death has occurred of Edward O'Grady, Ballynonty, Thurles, Tipperary.
Edward O'Grady, Killeens, Ballynonty, Thurles, Co Tipperary passed away peacefully in St James Hospital, Dublin, surrounded by his loving family after a short illness. Beloved husband to Kay and adoring father to Jonathan, Amber, Lucy, Mimi and Rosie Mae. He will be deeply missed by his son-in-law Jed, Jonathan's partner Hilary and grandsons Jasper, Freddie, Ned, Tristan, Hogan and Teddy, extended family and many friends around the world.
Reposing at home (E41X0T2) on Thursday 31st July from 3pm to 7pm. Funeral mass at 11.30am on Friday 1st August in St Joseph the Worker Church, Moyglass (E91E344) followed by burial in the adjoining Cemetery. Edwards Mass can be watched online at HERE
Edward's family would like to thank the doctors, nurses and staff of St James Hospital for their care and kindness. Donations in lieu of flowers to Cancer Trials Ireland (cancertrials.ie) and if you can, please consider donating blood.