Steve Moran, the long-serving former racing manager for the NSW Greyhound Breeders, Owners and Trainers Association, passed away early Saturday morning, aged 74.
Moran, who had endured a long battle with leukemia, was also a highly successful greyhound trainer with his wife Pauline.
The Morans trained the champion stayer Total Denial, who smashed the Wentworth Park and Sandown long-distance records in 2002, the year he also took out the $40,000 to the winner Brisbane Gold Cup at Albion Park.
Run The Risk, winner of the 2007 group one Peter Mosman Classic at Wentworth Park, was another of the many top-notch performers to emerge from the kennels of Pauline and Steve Moran.
Total Denial won 22 of just 41 starts while Run The Risk was an instant sensation, winning 13 of his first 15 races.
The Morans also won a dozen races at Wentworth Park with Zingalong Red, and won 15 races with the brilliant front runner Wez Da Risk, which they trained for current Wenty race night identities Ron Arnold and Sue Colubriale.
Wez Da Risk was runner-up to Prince Diablo in the 2012 Gosford Cup and was a finalist that year in the Golden Easter Egg, won by Don't Knocka Him.
Pauline Moran's father Alan Land, was among greyhound racing's most skillful chiropractors in the 1960s and 70s, and among the endless stream of visitors to his Annandale surgery was a young Steve Moran.
At 17, Pauline took out a trainer's license and soon after she and Steve Moran were married.
When her parents moved to the far north coast, she and Steve followed, and 12 months later Steve Moran became president of the Wauchope club.
The couple returned to Sydney when Steve's application for the position of racing manager with the GBOTA was successful.
Pauline and Steve Moran's daughter Nicole and her husband Ian Wallace are continuing the family tradition of training greyhounds.
In 2017 they won two 720m races at Wentworth Park with their dog Aye Tee Oh, named due to the couple buying the greyhound with their Australian Taxation Office refund cheque.
GRNSW wishes to extend sincere condolences to the family and friends of Steve Moran, on their tragic loss.
