I’d rather win one Gold Cup than 10 Grand Nationals
MEADE ONLY HAS EYES FOR FESTIVAL PRIZE
FEW would be surprised if Noel Meade’s love affair with the Cheltenham Festival had turned sour and he had filed f or divorce long ago.
Four wins are outnumbered by a list of defeats, some of them crushing. But if you have to feel real pain to truly appreciate happiness, the County Meath trainer could experience a legal high to catapult him over the grandstand if Road To Riches wins the Gold Cup on Friday.
The winner of the Lexus Chase, who will be ridden by Bryan Cooper, is one of 18 remaining. He may have lost his pl ace as shortest-priced Irish contender — that is now the Willie Mullins- trained Djakadam — but Meade’s hope is arguably the form horse from across the water.
Few would have even dreamt of a Gold Cup challenge when the eightyear- old landed the Galway Plate at the end of July. Back then he was a promising gelding beginning to bounce back from a disappointing slump thanks to a change in his diet and work routine.
His only defeat since — behind Sizing Europe over two-and-a-half miles at Gowran Park in October — came in a race that had not been on his original schedule and was a mistaken afterthought.
When Road to Riches, owned by Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, landed the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown over Christmas, defeating 2014 Gold Cup runner-up On His Own and AP McCoy’s Gold Cup mount Carlingford Lough, hopes were raised that Meade might finally secure the feature Festival prize he craves.
Meade, the seven-time Irish champion trainer who started training in 1970, saddled Harbour Pilot to twice finish third in the Gold Cup behind Best Mate. He said: ‘Anyone who trains a jumping horse wants to win the Gold Cup. I would rather win one Gold Cup than 10 Grand Nationals. To me that is just an ordinary race compared to the Gold Cup. The Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle, they are the two cherries.’
The latter race was a ‘cherry’ that was picked out of Meade’s back pocket in 2005 when Harchibald cruised up to Hardy Eustace with long-time jockey ally Paul Carberry sitting motionless. It looked done and dusted until, in a dramatic final 50 yards, the reigning champion — trained by the late Dessie Hughes — got his head back in front.
It was a result almost as tough to take for Meade as the short-head 1998 Arkle Chase defeat of Hill Society by Martin Pipe’s Champleve when he was still searching for his first Festival winner.
Meade said: ‘ Harchie was the one that hurt the most. He was going to win and then didn’t. It was just like someone had pulled a trapdoor from underneath me.
‘Hill Society was also tough. Martin came over and said “I am sure you have won”, but Richard Dunwoody had ridden mine and said he thought we were beat. But the photo-finish went on for so long.’
When Sausalito Bay finally cracked the Festival for Meade in 2000, he knelt down and kissed the turf i n the winner’s enclosure. He would love to be there again and the trainer reckons he is bringing one of his strongest teams to the Festival this week.
There i s Wounded Warrior in tomorrow’s National Hunt Chase, Very Wood in Wednesday’s RSA Chase and Apache Stronghold, rated a future Gold Cup contender, in Thursday’s JLT Novices’ Chase.
But it is the Gold Cup that Meade seeks most and he reckons he might be on the right road.
‘Silviniaco Conti is the form horse but I don’t think there is an awful lot between the Irish,’ he said. ‘My horse lost his way as a novice but we always thought stamina would be his forte and no horse was staying on better in the Lexus.’