Paddy McEvoy - Greyhound Trainer

Paddy McEvoy’s success with “Daws Dancer” in the 23rd Greyhound Derby at White City London in June 1953 was a unique occasion for both dog and trainer. “Daws Dancer”, not then yet two years old, was the youngest greyhound ever to win the English Derby and its trainer, Athy born Paddy McEvoy was the first County Kildare person to win this most coveted prize in greyhound racing.

The joy of Paddy’s success was shared with his many friends and in the suburbs of Ealing London, Fr. Tommy Doyle, formerly of Woodstock Street and John Blanchfield, formerly of Leinster Street were but two of those who celebrated Paddy’s success. John Blanchfield had a betting shop in Ealing where his brother Christy Blanchfield also worked. The Blanchfield’s sister Bella married Paddy Gibbons of St. Martin’s Terrace whose mother taught Paddy McEvoy to play the piano when he was a young lad and still living in Woodstock Street. Mrs. Gibbons who was a reporter for a local newspaper had two other sons, Frank who later married Josephine Horgan and Joe who died at a young age of TB. Now 83 years of age Paddy McEvoy still recalls how he envied Joe Gibbons who during the summer months lived in a tent in a field next to the present Tegral factory. Paddy was not then to know that Joe’s ill health required him to live in this way in a vain attempt to arrest the onward progress of the deadly TB.

In 1956 Paddy McEvoy had his second winner in an English Derby. By then he was attached to Clapton Stadium in the East End of London where he managed the racing kennels and trained dogs on his own behalf. The 1953 winner of the premier classic was “Dunmore King”. His final career total of three Derby winners was achieved with the success of “Palms Printer” at White City on 21st June, 1961. Paddy had attended dog trials in Shelbourne Park the previous November and bid 250 guineas for a dog which had impressed him in the morning trials. When the dog was withdrawn from sale Paddy contacted its owner Nick Breen of Ferns in Co. Wexford and agreed a price of £400 for Palms Printer to be delivered to him in London. He sold on the dog and successfully brought him through the first four rounds of the English Derby before achieving the satisfaction of winning his third English classic in the space of eight years.

Paddy and his family left London that same year and returned to Athy having bought a shop in Leinster Street. The shop now owned by Tom Jacob was home to the McEvoy family for the next four years and during that time Paddy had breeding kennels and a paddock built at Russellstown on the Dublin road. With the McEvoy family on their return to Ireland was the now retired winner of the 1953 Derby “Daws Dancer”. An affectionate dog, he was particularly fond of children and was apt to wander down town on occasions. Paddy always rewarded with a few sweets the youngsters who brought the Derby winner back to the shop. Only now he wonders if his generosity was in itself an encouragement to the youthful entrepreneurs to entice the over-friendly greyhound away from his base in the expectation of the usual sweet-toothed reward so beloved of youngsters.

In 1965 the shop was sold to Andy Conlon and the McEvoys returned to England, this time Paddy taking the management of Wimbledon Stadium. This was the most prestigious position available in the greyhound racing world, and that same year Paddy trained the winner of the Laurels. It was a success he repeated in 1968 while at the same time winning the Scurry Cup on two occasions. Dogs trained by Paddy McEvoy won many races over the years including the Produce Stakes in Catford but he can never forget his greatest racing disappointment in the same Produce Stakes final. On that occasion Paddy had four dogs in the six-dog final. However, they came in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th and to this day Paddy cannot understand why the expected victory eluded him. For Paddy, a lifetime spent in breeding and training greyhounds has taught him that a greyhound can only be a good running dog if it is genuine, intelligent and speedy or as the late Pat Mehigan once described a greyhound in his sporting column,
“Head like a snake, neck like a drake,
Back like a beam, side like a bream,
Heart room in plenty allow -
Tail like a rat, feet like a cat,
And breast to the ground like a plough”.

When Paddy finally retired from greyhound racing in May 1993 Wimbledon Stadium Chairman John Cearns made a presentation to him following the last race at Wimbledon that evening calling Athy-born Paddy as “one of greyhound racings greatest trainers”. That same day “Sporting Life” in announcing Paddy’s retirement after 33 years as a greyhound trainer referred to him as “gentle, kind, helpful and a fountain of knowledge, he is one of the world’s leading experts on greyhound breeding with which he has been closely involved throughout his career”.

Paddy and his Australian-born wife Patricia returned to Athy where they continue to live. Their grown-up family of four are all living abroad, Jim, a Computer Consultant in England, Patrick, a dentist in California, Tim, a Company Director in England and Mary, a Public Relations Consultant in California.

The eighty-three year old Paddy has retained a remarkably sharp memory of Athy in the 1930’s. He recalls the times when working on the Curragh he cycled over there and back each day. Mick Johnson of Convent View was then in the Army and like Paddy cycled there each day, calling Paddy, then living in Geraldine, as he passed his house each morning. The young athletic Paddy would invariably catch up with and pass Mick at Booleigh. It was the same athleticism and power which on one occasion permitted Paddy as a young man to cycle to Baldoyle races for afternoon horseracing and from there to Shelbourne Park for an evening dog meeting, leaving for Athy at 10 o’clock at night.

While interviewing Paddy I went through a list of local greyhound owners stretching back over the last 65 years. Without a moment’s hesitation he recalled for me the names of the various dogs owned or trained by those named, indicating important races won and identifying the better dogs involved. I was intrigued to hear his account of Fr. Maurice Browne, who while a curate in Athy in the 1930’s owned a series of greyhounds, all of which he raced under the name “W. Twyford”. The reverend gentleman, later to be Parish Priest in Ballymore-Eustace and author of The Big Sycamore used the nom-de-plume to avoid the critical scrutiny of his Bishop who did not allow his clerics to indulge in such pastimes. The success of Joe Daly’s dog “Cheeky Robin” in the coursing derby in Clonmel was remembered, as was the duo of Nellie Holland and Grace Carty, one a Catholic, the other a Protestant who shared a belief in the efficacy of holy water in improving a dog’s performance in Shelbourne Park.

The stories of dogs, owners and trainers come easily to the man whose working

life revolved around the chasing of the hare and the explosive break from the trap of the noble and graceful greyhound.

Paddy McEvoy - Greyhound Trainer

To train a winner of the English Greyhound Derby is a mark of greatness within the ranks of those whose sport is greyhound racing. To have done so on three occasions gives one a special place in the pantheon of sporting greats. It is an achievement which today can only be claimed by an Irishman - Athy man Paddy McEvoy, formerly of Woodstock Street and Geraldine Road. Born one year after the Easter Rising of 1916, Paddy, the son of local boatman James McEvoy, known locally as “Valley” McEvoy and his wife Margaret attended the Christian Brothers School in Athy. Classmates of his in the 1920’s included Tony and Des Whelan of Barrowhouse, Frank Carolan of Leinster Street, Tommy Prendergast, the younger brother of Paddy or “Darkie” Prendergast of horse-training fame and Mick Mullery. Now 84 years of age Paddy is living in retirement in Athy with his charming wife Patricia after a lifetime’s involvement in the training and breeding of greyhounds.

Paddy’s great grand-parents were some of the Landsdowne tenantry evicted from their Luggacurran holdings during the evictions in that area of the late 1880’s. Like so many more of those evicted they eventually moved into the town of Athy and lived in the house (now demolished) immediately next to the Catholic Curate’s thatched cottage in Woodstock Street. It was here that Paddy as a very young boy heard gunshots reverberating from the nearby military barracks as the IRA launched an attack during the War of Independence. Another memory from the old days in Athy is the jingle which in the 1920’s and later was part of the folk repertoire of the time.
“Oh Doctor dear Doctor dear Doctor John
Your Cod Liver Oil is so pure and so strong
I’m afraid of my life she’ll go down in the soil
If my wife stops drinking your Cod Liver Oil.

I got her a bottle for her just to try
The way she drank it you’d swear she was dry
I got her another, it vanished the same
Oh how can I ever keep up with this game.”

The doctor in question was Dr. John Kilbride, medical officer of health for Athy who spent four years in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the first World War. He was an energetic man whose concern for the local people was such that his was the prominent voice in promoting the need for better-class houses and improved town water and sewerage facilities in Athy at a time when disease regularly took it’s toll on the local community.

On leaving the Christian Brothers school Paddy joined local building contractors D. & J. Carbery of St. John’s Lane where he was apprenticed to carpenter Mick May who lived at St. Martin’s Terrace. Coincidentally, the Carbery firm had been set up following the eviction of Dan Carbery (Snr.) from his farm holding in Luggacurran at the same time as the McEvoys. On qualifying as a carpenter Paddy joined Mick May to work with a firm in Kildare town and later still joined the Board of Works in the Curragh, finally ending his carpentry career with Bord na Mona.

Paddy’s boyhood friend was Tommy Prendergast, commonly known as “The Red Lad” to distinguish him from his older brother Paddy Prendergast who was called “Darkie”. Tommy’s father was a horse trainer and animals including greyhounds were always part of the young Prendergast boys’ lives. So it was inevitable that the canal worker’s son from Woodstock Street joined his friend Tommy Prendergast in coursing greyhounds in the fields around Prussellstown. Paddy enjoyed the sport and soon acquired an interest in greyhound racing, getting his very first racing dog when as a school-boy he swapped his pet rabbits for a greyhound. Unknown to him his future was now to be intrinsically linked with the training and breeding of greyhounds, one of the most ancient of sporting animals whose association with the ancient Egyptians was noted as far back as 10,000 B.C. But first of all Paddy had to spend some years earning a living as a carpenter, and finally ended up working for Bord na Mona, erecting huts for workers during the Second World War.

Paddy’s record as a trainer officially started in 1938 while he was still employed as a carpenter. His first notable success was with a dog named “Shake Yourself”, previously owned by Sadie Lynch, formerly Sadie Young of Castlemitchell, wife of the local Provincial Bank Manager. The dog which was to be the first of many great greyhounds trained by Paddy McEvoy over the next forty five years, was of a nervous disposition. Paddy decided to breed from the dog and a succession of some brilliant greyhounds resulted. One of the better hounds from the litter was “Negroes Fire”, subsequently owned by Fingletons of Ballinclea which won many races on the track. Both bitch and daughter shared what was then a unique double when both won races on the same night in Harold’s Cross. Paddy’s success as a trainer and breeder did not go unnoticed and one day in 1945 local G.P. Dr. Jeremiah O’Neill brought a Brigadier Murray to Paddy’s house in Geraldine Road. “Would Paddy agree to meet Brigadier Critchley of the Greyhound Racing Association in the Hibernian Hotel in Dublin?” The all-expenses-paid trip to Dublin resulted in a job offer which the young part-time greyhound trainer could not refuse. The Racing Association was to open greyhound breeding kennels in Maudlins, Naas and invited Paddy to be its first manager. It was an offer too good to miss and so Paddy moved from Athy in 1945 to take up full-time employment in the sport to which he had been first drawn as a result of a boyhood friendship with Tommy Prendergast.

The kennels in Maudlins bred many dogs for the English market, but the success expected of many of the better dogs deserted them soon after they went across to England. Paddy was asked to investigate and quickly discovered that the dogs bred and reared in the best conditions possible in Ireland were not properly fed when sent abroad. The matter was soon resolved but Paddy was encouraged by Lord Brabazon and others to bring his skills across the Irish sea and so in 1950 he obtained his Private Trainers Licence and established his kennels at Longcross in Surrey. The next stage of Paddy’s career was about to start. He was not long there before he had his next winner, with the oddly named “Little Isle Cuchalainn”. Within a year he had a runner in the Greyhound Derby Final with “Rapid Choice”. Success, however, eluded him on that occasion but “Rapid Choice” was to provide Paddy with his first big successes in Britain when he won The Key at Wimbledon, the West Ham Summer Stakes and the Wembley Gold Cup, all in the same year. Paddy’s success with “Rapid Choice” was particularly pleasing for him as the dog had been bred by him at the Maudlins Kennels in Naas.

In 1953 the blue riband of greyhound racing was to fall to Paddy McEvoy of Athy when 10-1 chance “Daws Dancer” won the 23rd Greyhound Derby at White City, London. In winning the Derby that year Paddy’s dog emulated the immortal “Mick The Miller” as only the second dog to leave Ireland and win the British Greyhound Derby in the same year. “Mick The Miller” achieved his Derby success in 1929, the third year of the running of that famous race.

Paddy’s McEvoy’s star was now in the ascendancy, but as we shall find out next week, even greater success awaited him in the years ahead.