Kelly and Presenting Percy on target for the big one

PAT Kelly will stand on the brink of racing immortality when the tapes go up for the Cheltenham Gold Cup at the biggest National Hunt festival of all next Friday.

The most prestigious prize in the sport is tantalisingly close to the low-key Galway trainer who continues to defy convention in more ways than one and remains stubbornly aloof to the trappings of horse racing triumphs.

A man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, Kelly is arguably the most intriguing, mysterious, baffling, elusive and unorthodox individual bound for the Cotswolds next week with a leading contender for glory.

It’s almost three decades since the Craughwell-based trainer first headed to the Cheltenham festival with a runner – Art Trail was still travelling well in the 1990 Supreme Novices Hurdle when suffering a fatal injury coming down the hill – but his ‘second coming’ has really caught the imagination of racing aficionados.

Not long after his maiden voyage to Cheltenham, Kelly was the toast of his local track when turning out both Natalies Fancy and No Tag to win the Guinness Galway Hurdle at big prices in the early nineties. He’s that long in the game.

The subsequent years saw Kelly remain one of the flagbearers for West of Ireland racing, but the pickings were relatively lean – until he burst back into the spotlight with Mall Dini at the 2016 Cheltenham festival. Owned by Philip Reynolds – son of the late Taoiseach Albert – and ridden by Davy Russell, the 14/1 chance stormed up the hill to claim the Pertemps Final Handicap Hurdle over three miles.

It was a milestone achievement for the Galway handler but, incredibly, Kelly, Russell and Reynolds also combined for Cheltenham glory at the following two Cheltenham festivals with the one horse – Presenting Percy.

In 2017, the eight-year-old amazingly emulated the feat of Mall Dini 12 months earlier in the Pertemps before taking the breath of punters away with a devastating performance in the Grade One RSA Novices Chase last year.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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