Pa Fitzgerald: Trainer, mentor and gentleman
Legendary trainer Pa Fitzgerald had six Irish Cup winners.
Tucked among the tributes which followed the passing of legendary Kerry greyhound figure, Pa Fitzgerald, lay a wonderfully crafted line from Ireland’s top trainer, Paul Hennessy.
“You set the standard for the rest of us,” Hennessy wrote, “firstly as a gentleman and also as a trainer..”
Hennessy perfectly captured a sentiment shared by many, who were as keen to remember the Tralee man’s kindness and good company as anything he achieved in sport.
Football and greyhounds were the only two pursuits which mattered during Pa Fitzgerald’s childhood in the town and both left an indelible mark on his life.
Fitzgerald (88) passed away last week and was buried at New Rath Cemetery on Saturday.
Kerry coursing club chairman Thomas Ward, who led the guard of honour at Fitzgerald’s funeral, shared many an evening with him in Linnane’s bar on Upper Rock street.
Every conversation was an education for Ward. He explained: “Pa was a very, very nice man, and he would help out anyone. On a personal level he was a great inspiration to me growing up and would give me tips on how to get the most out of dogs. We’d sit in our local pub, Linnane’s, and just talk for hours.
“His greatest gift? He was able to get on with people, he saw no badness in anyone. I never heard him speak badly of any person. He was just a lovely guy. He was a very quiet man but when himself and Brendan (his brother) got together they were fearsome operators.”
Fitzgerald’s talents shone at a young age. In 1948, he trained Philandros to win a Kingdom Cup. He was just 16.
It set in train a remarkable career that resulted in coursing and track successes on both sides of the Irish Sea.
But long before all of that Pa Fitzgerald journeyed down another successful sporting path. He won an All-Ireland minor medal with Kerry in 1950 and was an unused sub when the senior side secured the Sam Maguire five years later with victory over Dublin.
At club level, he gave almost 10 years of senior service with Austin Stacks before playing his last Championship game in a 1958 victory over their Tralee rivals John Mitchels (2-5 to 1-4). In his eulogy last week Des Grace recounted the response he received when posing that age old Kerry football teaser of ‘how good was he?’
The reply was succinct: “My good man, Pa Fitzgerald was the Georgie Best of his day, he was that good.”
With boots hung up, Fitzgerald had more time for greyhounds. And it proved to be time well spent. In a remarkable 30-year spell, he had six Irish Cup winners: Ballyard Yank (1980), Ballyduff Bobby (1983), Black Rock (1985), Castle Pines (2005) and Castlemartyr (2008), Sandy Sea (2009).
One of his near-constant companions for many of those successes was Patsy Byrne, a fellow Kerry man who created a construction empire in the UK.
Byrne’s incredible business acumen was matched by his love for greyhound racing and in Fitzgerald he found a like-minded soul. Born less than 30 miles apart, the pair would form a lifelong friendship following a chance meeting in England.
Ward explained: “Pa ended up in England and found himself on a building site owned by Patsy. When Patsy realised who he was Pa was off the building site and was training dogs for him! Between them they took over the dog scene in England. It was luck on Patsy’s behalf that Pa ended up on his site. They became the best of friends.”
Midway through that era of dominance came a remarkable double as he claimed an Scottish Derby success in 1991 with Phantom Ash and a few months later Ballinderry Ash won the English equivalent. (Six years earlier Fitzgerald had trained Prince Edward’s Druids Jono to second place in the English Derby).
Though the Derby and the Oaks remained elusive Fitzgerald also had glory days at Clonmel winning a Champion Stakes with Mustang Rooster in 2004 and a Champion Bitch Stake with Call Up three years later.
Fifteen years ago this month, the Diarmuid O’Flynn, spent an afternoon with Pa ahead of the annual national coursing meet, where he had four dogs qualified.
A visit to his kennels, in a street behind his semi-detached house, was the starting point of the conversation.
“These aren’t the most fashionable kennels now anymore,” he says, “but they do the job, they’re clean and warm.” Clean and warm, cosy, traditional, not clinical and cold, artificial or modern. “Shure that’s the Yanks, their way of doing it. I wouldn’t be into that at all. Some dogs are mad to break out of their kennels, these fellas can’t wait to get in. You know they’re happy then. I know some people use walking machines, but I’d give it up first, I’d just give it up. Sure the time will come too when they won’t even want to feed them, they’ll just be giving them tablets and so on.
"I don’t know, I’ll stay with the old ways until I’m finished, walking them, galloping. The dogs love it. People don’t realise it. They think dogs have no memory, but they have. Pass a gate with a cat, or a hare, a rabbit, and forever they’ll pull towards that gate, look for it again. They’d miss all that, if they were on a walking machine, and you inside sitting down, reading the Dandy or the Beano."
He also explained his reasoning for walking the dogs as early in the morning as possible:
“I’d be getting up around five, you have to. I’d leave them out to do their business, then take them walking, but if I were to try to do that at half seven, it would be impossible, with the traffic. Tralee is no different now to Cork or Dublin, with the roundabouts and so on; coming into town, from all roads, there’s very heavy traffic. And even then, you meet traffic.
"I remember when you’d meet only one or two cars at any time of the day, back in the ’40s. Now, you’re taking your life in your hands every time you go on the road. They have these fellas now with the big exhausts in their cars. I was in Brands Hatch one time, there were 120,000 people, but there wasn’t as much noise as there is off these cars.”
What was the biggest thrill Pa ever had? “Sure it wasn’t with a dog at all!” he exclaimed with a laugh.
Alright then, with a dog!
“I couldn’t say, I’ve had them since I was a young fella. I got a thrill from them all.”
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