No Flies On Him bidding to earn Cheltenham place for a famous partnership
More than 40 years after training J. P. McManus's first Festival winner, Edward O'Grady could have another Cheltenham prospect for the same owner.
J. P. McManus has his vast string spread among numerous stables on both sides of the Irish Sea these days. But among the many trainers who could be sending a McManus runner to the Cheltenham Festival next month, where McManus is the most successful owner in the meeting’s history, is the man who supplied the very first winner in the green and gold hoops, Edward O’Grady. Depending on how No Flies On Him fares in Punchestown’s Sandra Bourke Novice Hurdle on Sunday, the O’Grady-trained novice could take up his entry in either the Supreme, for which he’s as low as 12/1 in some places, or the Baring Bingham.
That first Festival winner for McManus came in what was then the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle (nowadays the Baring Bingham) in 1982 with Mister Donovan. Despite not having won a race over hurdles beforehand – though he’d won a couple of bumpers that season – and seeming to have a fair bit to find on form, Mister Donovan was sent off the second favourite, having been backed from 6/1 to 9/2, and landed a gamble with a much-improved performance.
O’Grady went on to provide four of the first five Festival winners in the McManus colours, with Bit of A Skite winning the following season’s National Hunt Chase on the way to the Irish Grand National, though it’s now 30 years since the last time McManus and O’Grady combined to have Festival winners; they had two in 1994 when Time For A Run won the Coral Cup and Mucklemeg won what was then the Festival Bumper.
O’Grady was already no stranger to success at Cheltenham before Mister Donovan came along and had won the same race two years earlier with Drumlargan. His first Festival winner was Mr Midland, in the 1974 National Hunt Chase, but it was another novice hurdler who stands out among O’Grady’s Festival winners, Golden Cygnet, the brilliant but ill-fated winner of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle in 1978.
The last time O’Grady had a winner at the Festival was in 2006 when Sky’s The Limit made a mockery of his handicap mark to win the 30-runner Coral Cup under joint top-weight. But with 18 winners, O’Grady remains among the most successful Irish trainers at the Festival who are still active, behind only Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead.
However, the McManus-owned Catch Me went close to providing O’Grady with a more recent Festival winner, beaten less than a length into second in the Pertemps Final in 2012 under Tony McCoy, five years after the same horse finished third in the Baring Bingham. It’s now almost ten years since O’Grady last had a runner at the Festival at all; that was Kitten Rock, also owned by McManus, who was one of the outsiders when sixth to Faugheen in the 2015 Champion Hurdle.
No Flies On Him entered the Cheltenham picture when making an impressive debut over hurdles in a maiden at Leopardstown on Boxing Day. Sent off the 3/1 second favourite in a huge field, he was soon jumping soundly in front under Mark Walsh and just had to be shaken up approaching the final hurdle before asserting on the flat from another of the better-fancied runners, Gordon Elliott’s D B Cooper.
No Flies On Him had won his only start in points this time last year, beating Jango Baie who coincidentally also won over hurdles on Boxing Day, doing so for Nicky Henderson in the Grade 1 Formby Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree. No Flies On Him had a Grade 1 entry himself at the Dublin Racing Festival, where he would have been taking on the Supreme favourite Ballyburn, but, with just that one run over hurdles so far, connections have opted instead to give him a bit more education first at Punchestown before pitching him into Grade 1 company, all being well at Cheltenham next month.
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