Horse Racing

Pat Kelly, quiet man of horse racing, ought to make big noise in Gold Cup

Does it rely on if our wearing stars don’t talk to us? This is the question, or one of them, posed approximately Pat Kelly, the obscure instructor with a considerable danger in Friday’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, thanks to the presence in his Athenry strong of the incredible Presenting Percy. That Kelly remains obscure is entirely his personal preference, given that he has saddled a winner at the Cheltenham Festival in every of the closing three years. This could be a fair achievement for nearly everybody in the sport; it is tremendous for someone with fewer than 20 horses in his yard. By rights, Kelly must be lionized. He will now not allow it. Cheltenham Gold Cup jockey Harry Cobden: I chatted football with Fergie … I didn’t apprehend it.

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Cheltenham’s PR group lately sought to arrange a press convention with him as part of the Festival buildup however had been growing to become down. Johnny Ward, a specially decided journalist, tried valiantly, yet without achievement, to get a line or two from Kelly as he unsaddled a winner at Gowran in January, the instructor slipping away at the pretext of straightening the pony’s rug. Rumour has it that a small delegation from Horse Racing Ireland, the game’s promotional wing, couldn’t even get an answer once they grew to become upon Kelly’s doorstep.

“I may have spoken to him twice in my existence,” says Gary O’Brien, the TV presenter whose ubiquity lengthy in the past earned him the nickname ‘The voice of Irish racing.’ From Cork to Fairyhouse, in case you teach a winner, O’Brien is usually with the aid of your facet in a depend on seconds, but even he has never controlled to get Kelly on display. “I’ve bumped into him a couple of times. He became perfectly excellent. My impression is he’s shy, doesn’t just like the spotlight.” That reticence might also have made Kelly another thrilling than if he were garrulous. An Eli Wallach on seems, he has by some means received the mystique of Clint Eastwood.

“Pat is a very, very quiet man,” says Philip Reynolds, proprietor of Presenting Percy. “He remains very an awful lot to himself. Enjoys his drink while the paintings are carried out but don’t move searching out trouble and don’t invite exposure.” He does a lot of exact work around his locality in a tranquil way. He’s a person of deep religion, a big family guy. Philip Reynolds. Reynolds adds that Kelly had an awful revel in someone in the media, 25 years in the past or more. “I don’t need to go into it. It’s Pat’s story to inform if he ever decides to inform it. But that has likely made him doubly digicam-shy. I assume he would be beside; however, that certainly hasn’t helped.”

The proprietor appears to be protective of his friend’s privacy. I become lurking close to Kelly in the paddock the final yr’s Festival, hoping to get some words to be used in a profile piece one day. As I approached, certainly one of Reynolds’s entourage intervened: “Come on, Pat, Philip needs to talk to you.” By Reynolds’s account, we’re all of the poorer for not understanding Kelly better. “He does some correct work around his locality in a tranquil way, and those likely recognize not anything approximately it. He’s a man of deep religion, a big family guy. Visits his mum each day. And behind all that, he’s an absolute genius with regards to schooling horses.” The owner is plenty less flattering of Kelly’s strong. “I’ve higher facilities at domestic for some hunters and display-jumpers than Pat has for education racehorses.”

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Conor O’Dwyer, who received two Gold Cups as a jockey and frequently rode for Kelly within the early 90s, says: “He’s a mad genius. He’s friendly, he’s a great fella, he’s definitely a top-magnificence fella. However, he wouldn’t be really social.” O’Dwyer can don’t forget the times while Kelly skilled winners of the Galway Hurdle inside the space of four years, and the teacher’s renewed achievement isn’t any wonder to him. “All he ever needed become the ammunition because the fella says. But then Pat would in no way be one to go chasing owners. He’d feel if people want him to educate their horse, they’ll carry it to him.

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“I think they returned inside the day while the ones properly horses were there, people knew he could educate and simply gave him the horses. So that’s the manner it turned into again then. Whereas now every person has to combat their nook a lot more difficult, and that’s now not in Pat’s nature.” A handful of pundits have suggested that Kelly must be greater impending to keep the flying public informed and help generate publicity for the sport and the Gold Cup’s sponsor, Magners. But we can all be Frankie Dettori, and a few humans are never going to be comfy with the PR sport. The “responsibility” concept has received restrained traction and possibly none in any respect in County Galway, wherein “PG” Kelly can be a hero if his horse can stuff the English on Friday. If he additionally annoys the English pressmen by leaving them brief of quotes, a lot the higher.

Randy Montgomery

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