The death occurred last week of racehorse trainer Edward O’Grady. He was 75. The Ballynotty, Co. Tipperary-based O’Grady trained his first Cheltenham Festival winner in 1974 and went on to enjoy 18 victories in all at that “Olympics” of national hunt racing. Most prominent among them was Golden Cygnet, a spectacular winner of the Supreme Novices Hurdle in 1978, who looked to have the racing world at his feet only to sustain fatal injuries in a fall just weeks later. O’Grady started training in 1972 and saddled his first winner, Vibrax, at Gowran Park in January of that year. He took over the license from his father Willie, who had just died. That meant O’Grady, who attended school at Blackrock College in Dublin, had to leave university without finishing with his veterinary degree. He was also the spotlight due to the famous Gay Future controversy in 1974 when the horse of that name was at the centre of a gambling coup by an Irish betting syndicate. O’Grady was later played by Pierce Brosnan in the film “Murphy’s Stroke” based on the episode.
