Obituary: Edward O'Grady, trainer who conquered Cheltenham and was embroiled in betting coup

Irish Independent

3 days ago

The idea was a bait-and-switch, ­taking advantage of the backwardness of the Cartmel racecourse in Cumbria, which in 1974 had only just installed a permanent telephone but was not connected to the bookmakers' ­Exchange Telegraph Blower system.
The 'Cork Mafia', led by the building tycoon Tony Murphy, bought a promising chestnut called Gay Future.
Officially Gay Future would be trained by a Scot (who was in on the scam) called Tony Collins, who had not had a winner in 18 months. In fact, the nag that plodded around Collins's gallops was a chestnut lookalike, while the real Gay Future was sent in secret to be trained by O'Grady in Co Tipperary.
Gay Future was sailed to ­Britain and handed over on a country road off the M6 48 hours before the ­Ulverston Novices' Hurdle on the August Bank Holiday 1974.
At the last minute, the undistinguished jockey was swapped for the talented Timmy Jones, who simulated incompetence by falling off twice in the ring. One of O'Grady's men, disguised in a wig and sunglasses, rubbed soap suds into Gay Future to make it look as if he were in a muck of sweat.
The Cork Mafia, meanwhile, flew to London where they placed more than 500 double and treble bets on three Collins-trained runners across various courses: Gay Future at Cartmel, Opera Cloak at Plumpton and Ankerwyke at Southwell. The bookies accepted these so-called 'hail Mary' bets greedily — unaware that both Opera Cloak and Ankerwyke would be pulled from their races, leaving them obliged to honour bets on Gay Future alone.
At first, all went well. Gay Future romped home at 10-1. Cartmel's single telephone was mysteriously cut off, so the starting price was unaffected by the turmoil of betting in London.
The bookies who had taken the trebles were not unduly worried, as two more legs of the bet were still left to run. Panic only began to spike when Opera Cloak and Ankerwyke were both declared non-runners.
The mistake that caused the coup to unravel was that the same reason was given for both horses' withdrawals: a broken-down horsebox. A Daily Mail reporter rang up Collins's yard in Scotland, to be told by his housekeeper that the horses were grazing in the paddock — they had never been sent at all.
Sensing fraud, many bookmakers refused to pay up, and after a legal battle the Cork Mafia wound up collecting a fraction of their winnings. Collins and Murphy were convicted at Preston crown court for conspiracy to defraud. O'Grady was arrested but the charges were dropped; he took a helicopter back to the Cheltenham Festival, where he still had runners.
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Played by Pierce Brosnan in a thinly disguised version for the television film Murphy's Stroke (1980), O'Grady never spoke about the Gay Future affair, observing: 'Do you know what the mouse said to the trap? 'We won't go into that.''
Edward Joseph O'Grady was born on September 27, 1949, son of three-times Irish champion jump jockey turned trainer Willie O'Grady, and his wife Mary (nee Hogan), sister of the trainer PP Hogan.
From Blackrock College in Dublin he studied veterinary science until his father's untimely death in 1972, when he took over the yard. He attracted the patronage of JP McManus, and became Ireland's champion National Hunt trainer from 1977 to 1980.
At Cheltenham he saddled 18 winners, starting with Mr Midland ridden by Mouse Morris in 1974 and ending with Sky's The Limit in the 2006 Coral Cup — a strong showing for an Irishman in the pre-Willie-Mullins era and at the time behind only ­Vincent O'Brien and Arkle's trainer Tom Dreaper.
His finest horse was agreed to be Golden Cygnet, short-lived winner of the 1978 Supreme Novices' Hurdle — 'the James Dean of racing', O'Grady said.
He is survived by his third wife, Kay, by a son and two daughters from his first marriage and two daughters from his second marriage.