Michael Gray

Francis Michael Gray died early August 20, 2022, after being fortified by the Holy Sacraments of the Catholic Church, in Pompano Beach, FL. He went by his middle name, Michael. Michael was born February 9, 1926 in Miami, FL, where his father raced horses in the wintertime. He descended from his father’s old Maryland Catholic family (who came to America in the 1680s) and his mother’s Kentucky family. He was from Scotch, Irish, English ancestry on his father’s side and Irish, German on his mother’s side. His mother Marie Cahill Hoffler Gray and her siblings were Catholic converts in Louisville. Tragedy struck in 1910 when his paternal grandparents were killed by a train in Washington D.C. Michael’s father, Maurice Gray was orphaned at age 8 and was sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School in Baltimore (where Babe Ruth had gone). Maurice Gray escaped the orphanage finding refuge on the thoroughbred track at Bowie, MD and adopted the professional name of “Jimmy McGee” to evade the Truant Officer. The legal name of Gray remained. Jimmy McGee entered horse racing before World War One, and was a renowned horse trainer in NJ, FL, IL and New England, and his best owners were Art Rooney of Pittsburgh Steelers, Larry MacPhail of the Dodgers and Yankees, and Du Pont heir Gough Thompson. Michael Gray grew up between Miami’s St. Theresa elementary school in Coral Gables FL and Holy Name School in Louisville, KY until age 14, and went full time to school in Louisville all through high school, graduating from St. Xavier HS in 1944. He and his family often spent summers racing in Delaware, New Jersey, and the Chicago suburbs during 1930s and 1940s. His two younger brothers, Rev. Robert B. Gray, priest of Archdiocese of Louisville, and Joseph Donald Gray, predeceased him in death in 2021 and 2022. On his 18th birthday on February 9, 1944, Michael volunteered for US Army duty, but was rejected due to a tubercular spot on his lung, and began college at Notre Dame during the summer of 1944 and graduated from ND in January 1948. While at ND, the Irish won national titles in football in 1946 and 1947. Michael met several life-long friends at South Bend including NFL Hall of Famers, George Connor and Bill “Moose” Fisher. Upon college graduation, Michael began work as agent for jockey Nick Shuk and soon after began his cherished love of training race horses. He saddled his first winner at Charlestown Raceway in WV in 1950 before entering the Army during the Korean War. He was discharged a year and a half later, and began training horses in FL, MD, and NJ. At Miami Beach in early 1950. Michael met his wife of 70 years, Mary Louise Josephine Donnelly Gray, a fashion model who was raised in Philadelphia. They were married at St. Patrick’s Church in Miami Beach on January 3, 1953, and thereafter lived in RI, NJ, and FL in rapid succession before settling in Miami, FL. When Michael ran into ND classmate Ed Hoban in 1955, his training career took off, as he became leading trainer at Churchill Downs in the fall of 1955 matching a Downs feat achieved by his father in the 1920s. Michael’s best horse, Pete’s Folly, was a 1956 Kentucky Derby contender and won three-year-old stakes races. In 1967, Michael’s filly Dear Ethel tied the world record going 4.5 furlongs in a record time of 50 and 2/5 seconds. He had additional stakes winners in Bishop’s Bond and Ramona Rode. He trained for CEO Hugh Grant of Kendall Oil, Owner Art Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, President of Sears Roebuck Crowdus Baker as well as other prominent clients during the 1960s and 1970s. Michael’s children are: Priscilla, identical twins Christopher and Daniel, Suzanne, Robert, Patrick, Mary Josephine, Michael, and Peter. Traveling half the year, Michael decided to leave South Florida in August 1970 resettled his family to Louisville, KY since KY had year-round racing which afforded him time to be around his family full-time. He continued raising his children in a beautiful house adjacent to the historic Locust Grove Plantation until moving back to Fort Lauderdale, FL in 1987. From 1975 through 1989, Michael focused on the sale and breeding of horses by forming “McGee Bloodstock Agency” and he co-owned Ionian Farm in Ocala, FL. He also brokered horse sales of which he recommended a client to buy the gelding John Henry for $25K in 1978. John Henry subsequently won over $6 Million and was Horse of Year, twice. He also brokered the sale of prominent stakes winner No No to songwriter, Burt Bacharach. Michael and his wife Mary Lou emphasized education and funded tuition at colleges such as Florida State, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt (3), Washington U. in St. Louis, Duke, Indiana, Southern Methodist, Drexel and George Mason. Multiple children earned graduate degrees. From 1987 until his death, Michael and his wife commuted between Fort Lauderdale and Fredericksburg, VA so that they could spend summer/fall months closer to their children and grandchildren in the Washington, DC area. Besides his nine children, Michael had eighteen grandchildren and is survived by his wife Mary Louise of Pompano Beach and children Priscilla of Naples FL, Christopher of Alexandria, VA, Daniel of Falls Church, VA, Suzanne of Fredericksburg, VA, Robert (Vonda) of FL, Patrick (Anila) of North Springfield, VA, Mary Josephine (Steven) of Ft. Myer’s FL, Michael (Helen) of Falls Church, VA, and Peter (Megan) of Manassas VA. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Little Sisters of the Poor, Little Sisters of the Poor -