The not so lonely passion of Patrick Oliver Brady

RACING: The Monaghan trainer's operation may be small, but he travels to Cheltenham this week with two horses, Ansari and Balapour, and high hopes of making the winner's enclosure. And if that happens, you better watch out, writes Brian O'Connor.

Oliver Brady tells the story better than anyone else and enjoys it more too.

"After Ansari won at Naas the last day, I was coming down off the stands and this fella, who was running flat out, bumped into me. He all but knocked me down, he was going so fast.

"He turns around, all apologies, and says he was running because he didn't want to miss the madman in the winner's enclosure. Then he takes off again."

No prizes for guessing who the madman is. In a sport that specialises in murmur and suspicion, Patrick Oliver Brady lifts right out as a true original. Nor for Brady, the cute hoor's nod and wink. Each winner is celebrated with roaring gusto, usually involving the glories of County Monaghan and the virtues of the underdog.

Punters relish it. Brady's Naas assailant was probably just trying to get a position in which to fully appreciate the wide-eyed, uncomplicated brio of a man so obviously in love with his life.

Sure, there are the bandy-legged cynics who look at Brady bellowing like a rogue bullock and shake their heads with condescending pity. But what the supposed hard-nosed professionals forget is that Brady is doing a helluva lot better than many of them care to admit.

This winter, Ansari has won five handicap hurdles, contributing handsomely to Brady's total of seven winners for the jumps season. Throw in a couple of flat winners last year, and stir it up with the close on 25 to 1 profit to a one euro stake on Brady's runners. After that, just have a glance at some of the cynics below him in the list.

Ansari travels to Cheltenham next week, possibly for Thursday's County Hurdle, if some of those above him in the handicap drop out, but more likely for Tuesday's opener.

His stable companion Balapour will run in Thursday's Triumph Hurdle, trying to do even better than Brady's only previous festival runner did in the race. Gazalani ran fifth and was promoted to fourth in the 1996 Triumph.

Look at the Irish horses who started a lot shorter price than Gazalani did in that race and ponder the value in the race this time around.

"If Balapour gets his good ground, he will be bang there. He is a helluva horse. All he needs is the ground because he has a slight wind problem," says Brady.

If either wins, the staid citizens of Cheltenham better watch out. Dawn Run, Imperial Call and Danoli will seem like the twittering of small birds in comparison.

"If one of mine wins, Ireland will get a million pounds worth of publicity!" he grins before adding the carefully worded consideration: "It would be so great for the county of Monaghan, for racing, and for myself."

That's the really interesting thing about Brady. In private the man is so totally at odds with the public image. Quietly spoken but articulate; openly hospitable and yet thoughtful about the significance of what he says.

At home, the 62-year-old is as far from the vocal exhibitionist on the track as Monaghan is from the Curragh.

"That all started after Gazalani won the Jameson Gold Cup in '97. I was so hyped up because it was such a big race, and I'd had a good bet at 33 to 1. I started shouting 'no all-weather gallops for us' because I had none at the time, and people loved it.

"They expect it now and wind me up. It's all 'what about Ballybay' and all that. I love it. People don't get enough enjoyment when they go racing. For me, the only real difference between a parade ring and the hill at Croke Park for instance is size," he says.

But it's only then he tells you that the bet on Gazalani paid for the nine-furlong, all-weather gallop at the back of his house and stables near Shercock. It's built on land that used to be owned by Senator Billy Fox and which was bought by a tortuous series of each-way trebles involving Sea Pigeon, Little Owl and Willie Wumpkins at the 1981 Cheltenham festival.

That prompted Brady's return to Monaghan from Britain the following year, determined to follow his dream of training racehorses. His only experience had been owning a couple and "running horses up and down the street for sixpence a time at the Ballybay horse fair when I was a child."

But Brady is a man used to achievement.

Look at him in the winner's enclosure after his next winner and before joining in the laughter, understand he will return home afterwards to his position as Managing Director of Shabra Plastics, a recycling company with plans at Carrickmacross, Castleblaney and Armagh.

A total of 70 people are employed by Shabra, which is owned by the Shah family who are originally from India. Brady's involvement with them stretches back years when the recycling industry took him to the likes of Korea and Singapore before the call of home and horses couldn't be ignored.

His working life consists of juggling a major industry and a racing yard of 13 racehorses. Two of the horses going to Cheltenham, jump racing's mecca, and an expanding business are all anyone needs to know about the depth beneath the jokey exterior.

"I remember agreeing to become head man and then watching him after on television after Gazalani won that big race at Fairyhouse. I thought he was plastered!" says Val Donoghue who previously worked for high-profile trainers like Jenny Pitman. "Then I was told he has been teetotal all his life."

"What you get here are happy horses. You never see them with their ears back and they've got so much to look at. They are happy here which is the important thing," Donoghue adds.

It's not surprising. Brady's yard has a panoramic view of the rolling Monaghan-Cavan countryside with Lough Bawn to the front. At the back of the gallops is another lake where the small string can paddle away any strain on taut limbs.

"I'm the only trainer in Monaghan and I like doing a bit to get the place into the headlines sometimes. We can't do much at football and we've a small, hilly county that's not much use for training horses.

"But I remember after Gazalani won, there was a bonfire when we came back and streamers all over the trees. The whole country side backs them," says Brady. It's obvious that that matters to him.

The man does admit to being a small-time operator in the horse business, but that doesn't stop him from having total faith in his own ability to do the job. He admits to picking knowledge up as he went along after first being granted a licence in 1984, but says there has never been doubt in his mind about being able to do the job.

"I believe if I was training horses full-time, I would be rubbing shoulders with the best of them," Brady says.

"Professionalism is not easy, but we try and do things right here. It's about treating the horses as athletes. The players at Manchester United are good but they also have the best back up and that's what we try to do too. I also spend a lot of time with the formbook. A lot of trainers just enter and run. It's not good enough."

He also has strong views on the use of natural remedies for horses and the benefits of a small operation are evident when he points to a horse staring out from a box just outside the kitchen.

"Shirzadiyan there would turn his nose up at his feed if there was cold liver oil in it, but put some linseed oil in to it and he's fine," he says.

Many of the horses at the Brady yard are royally bred ex-Aga Khan-owned animals who have been bought cheaply and have found themselves reinvigorated by the calm Monaghan air.

"It has to be of benefit to them, being up here. Ansari must hold some kind of record, winning five handicaps while still a novice. We bought him for £9,500 when he was small and weak. He's still small but we gave him time and he's a seriously strong horse now," he says.

One would need a heart of stone not to keep at leastone eye on Ansari and Balapour next week. And Cheltenham, after its one-year break, could hope for no better return than an Oliver Brady winner.