Noel Meade

An eight-time Champion National Hunt Trainer in his native Ireland, Noel Meade is the epitome of the old adage ‘Great oaks from little acorns grow’. Born on January 2, 1951, he first turned his hand to training in 1971 and, at that stage, he had just one horse, Tu Va, in his charge. Meade also part-owned the modest 100 guineas purchase and, memorably, rode him to victory at Wexford on August 30, 1971, thereby saddling his first winner as a trainer. Fittingly, the base for his training operation, in Castletown, Co. Meath, is called Tu Va Stables.

Fast forward five decades or so and Meade has saddled nearly 3,000 winners. In the first 20 years of his career, his emphasis was on Flat racing and, in recent years, he has undergone a resurgence in that sphere, too. He saddled his first Group 1 winner, Helvic Dream, in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh in May 2021 and, in 2023, saddled 35 domestic winners from 322 runners, at a strike rate of 11%, and amassed €734,393 in prize money.

Under National Hunt Rules, Meade has a total of six Cheltenham Festival winners to his name, all since 2000, with the most recent being Jeff Kidder in the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices’ Handicap Hurdle in 2021. Domestically, in the 2022/23 National Hunt season, he saddled 23 winners from 179 runners, at a strike rate of 13%, and won €553, 645 in total prize money.

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