Denis Fitzgerald crowns 40 years at the festival with victory as a breeder

It could be fillet steak for dinner most nights for Denis Fitzgerald, given that the family’s butchers shop in Fermoy, County Cork, has been in operation since 1964.

Quite how he was going to celebrate becoming the breeder of a showcase Cheltenham Festival winner remained to be seen, given that Fitzgerald was quite misty-eyed at watching Lisnagar Oscar’s crowning moment in the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle on Thursday.

Just under two years ago, he had prepared the gelding to collect a five-year-old geldings' maiden at Liscaroll by eight lengths before turning him over privately to Rebecca Curtis for £105,000 at the Goffs UK Aintree Sale.

"To come here and be standing in the parade ring, and having bred a winner at Cheltenham. What more could you ask for?" he said. "I’ve been coming here 40 years.

"I trained for years but had packed it up and my son got him ready for his point-to-point. He won there and went to the sales in Liverpool. He came out of the ring with no bid, they said he was too small, so Rebecca came down afterwards and she bought him. She was decent enough, too. I couldn’t be happier with it all."

Lisnagar Oscar enters the hallowed Cheltenham winner's enclosureCredit: Michael Steele

Lisnagar Oscar is the fourth foal of Asta Belle, an unraced half-sister to dual Liverpool Hurdle winner and top-class chaser Whisper. His year-younger brother Don’t Shout is a novice hurdle winner this season for Nigel Twiston-Davies.

"None as good as this one," was Fitzgerald’s response when asked whether he had produced any other useful horses.

"We’ve two broodmares, only one is really in action at the moment, and the mare’s in foal to Flemensfirth. She’s got two more on the ground, a yearling colt by Soldier Of Fortune and a three-year-old mare by Leading Light. There’s no shortage of them around!"

Fitzgerald can now stand among the rare preserve of winning Cheltenham breeders, and it will mean all the more as the gutsy seven-year-old’s name holds considerable resonance.

"Myself and my brother have the butcher business in Fermoy, and I live in Lisnagar," he explained. "It’s a famous place, PP Hogan (the late doyen of the Irish point-to-point scene) was there for years, and we bought his farm. That’s where we finished up, and that’s why the horse’s name is Lisnagar. So it goes back over the years."

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