Farewell to a bookmaking legend, a fearless layer who could take a five-figure bet without rubbing the price

Racing Lives is a new weekly series on the lives of people and horses we have recently lost. Here, Alan Sweetman remembers the legendary bookmaker David Power, who died this week.

When a young draper's assistant named Richard Power left his job to ply his trade as a bookmaker in 1890s Waterford, he did so without the blessing of his well-to-do family who feared that the respected Power name would fall into disrepute and that financial ruin was certain.

Roughly 125 years later, the seeds of Dick Power's youthful rebellion have grown into a global betting empire. And in the life of his grandson, David Power, whose funeral took place in Dublin on Thursday, we see personified virtues of integrity, kindness and humility that would have satisfied the strictest Victorian moralist.