Affordale Fury gives Noel Meade another shot at the Gold Cup

Ireland suddenly has another leading contender for the Cheltenham Gold Cup after Affordale Fury landed a gamble in last month’s Savills Chase at Leopardstown. Widely available at 28/1 after the final declarations, Affordale Fury was sent off at 7/1 in a market headed by dual Gold Cup winner Galopin des Champs. He had the favourite, bidding to win the Savills for the third year running, back in third and he wasn’t the only scalp that the winner took among some higher-profile rivals.

Having made much of the running, he dug deep to see off the challenge of 2024 Grand National winner I Am Maximus, while reigning Gold Cup winner Inothewayurthinkin trailed home last.

Even so, the two Gold Cup winners remain at the head of the betting to win at Cheltenham again in March with good grounds for thinking that they will put up more of a fight than they did at Leopardstown – it was Galopin des Champs’ first run of the season after all, while Inothewayurthinkin’s whole campaign is being geared towards a defence of his crown.

But while his chief rivals might not have been near their peak form on the day, it was very much a career best for Affordale Fury who has just turned eight. His chasing career has been an interrupted one – the Savills was just his seventh start over fences – but Affordale Fury hasn’t exactly come from nowhere.

He won his first two starts under Rules, a bumper and a maiden hurdle at Galway, and ended his novice hurdle season finishing runner-up at both Cheltenham and Punchestown. He was beaten a length by Stay Away Fay when sent off at 150/1 for the Albert Bartlett, ridden for the first time by Sam Ewing who partnered him in the Savills, and then chased home Gaelic Warrior in the Irish Mirror Novice Hurdle.

With his injury problems apparently behind him this season, Affordale Fury went into the Savills on the back of a straightforward listed win at Thurles which itself followed a good second to Envoi Allen in ‘his’ race, the Champion Chase at Down Royal. Affordale Fury’s Savills win was a significant one, too, for his trainer Noel Meade who was having his first Grade 1 win since Beacon Edge took the Drinmore Novice Chase in late-2021.

But Meade is no stranger to success in the Savills as Affordale Fury was his record-equalling fifth winner of the race, including in its former guises as the Ericsson and the Lexus. There was tragedy associated with his first winner, Johnny Setaside, who collapsed and died after winning the 1996 renewal, but his three subsequent winners all made it to the Gold Cup later the same season.

Pandorama took his career record to nine wins from eleven starts when successful in the 2010 Lexus. Most of those wins had come on soft or heavy ground. He only took his chance in a good-ground Gold Cup after some doubt about his participation and reportedly finished sore in seventh, some way behind Long Run, Denman and Kauto Star in a memorable renewal.

There were better showings in the Gold Cup, though, from the Gigginstown-owned relatives Road To Riches and Road To Respect, successful at Leopardstown in 2014 and 2017 respectively. Road To Riches had already won the Galway Plate and Champion Chase at Down Royal on his way to winning the Lexus where the previous two Gold Cup winners, Lord Windermere and Bobs Worth, were among those he beat. He then ran an excellent race in defeat in the Gold Cup, finishing clear of the rest in third just behind Coneygree and Djakadam.

Road To Respect became Meade’s only winner over fences to date at the Cheltenham Festival (he has trained six Festival winners in all) when successful in the Plate Handicap Chase and ended the year winning at Leopardstown where he too had the reigning Gold Cup winner, Sizing John, down the field behind him. Road To Respect didn’t fare quite as well as Road To Riches in the Gold Cup but still made the frame in fourth behind Native River. While Road To Respect didn’t contest the Gold Cup again (he was third for the sponsors in the Ryanair a year later), he went on to win the Champion Chase at Down Royal twice and was third in two more Savills Chases as well as beaten a short head in an Irish Gold Cup.

Another chaser to do his trainer proud in the Cheltenham Gold Cup was Harbour Pilot, third in consecutive renewals at odds of 40/1 and 20/1. Harbour Pilot had the misfortune to be foaled in the same year as Best Mate but he ran two fine races behind him at Cheltenham, notably when Best Mate completed his hat-trick in 2004. Harbour Pilot’s jockey Paul Carberry had Best Mate hemmed in against the rail when challenging for the lead three out and was still pressing Best Mate hard at the last before being beaten less than two lengths at the line.

Stable jockey Carberry was also the regular rider of Harchibald who, a year later, should have given Meade his greatest success at Cheltenham in the following season’s Champion Hurdle though Harchibald had other ideas, finding nothing and going down by a neck to Hardy Eustace having still been on the bridle a hundred yards out.

It’s easy to forget now, when Willie Mullins has been so dominant for so long despite the best attempts of such as Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead, that in the era of Harchibald and Harbour Pilot, Meade himself enjoyed a lengthy reign as Ireland’s champion jumps trainer. Indeed, apart from Mullins, Meade is Ireland’s only other trainer to have held that title this century. Meade won eight titles in the nine seasons between 1998/99 and 2006/07, the exception being 2000/01 when Mullins was champion for the first time.

The economic crisis which hit Ireland towards the end of the first decade of the century was a big blow to Meade’s yard as the trainer himself admitted. ‘Most of our owners disappeared and never came back, and Willie now has the type of backing we had’ Meade was quoted in Chasers & Hurdlers 2014/15. ‘If you can win in the sale-ring, you’ll win on the track and that, in turn, will get you more horses; the more horses you get, the more you win and the more new horses you can buy. It’s gone so far with Willie that I can’t see it changing.’

Meade at least enjoyed support from Gigginstown for a time, but in the 2024/25 Irish jumps season the stable had only 18 winners compared with more than a hundred when he was champion for the final time. But that doesn’t tell the whole story as Meade has actually had more winners on the Flat than over jumps in recent years. His career has almost turned full circle, therefore, as he concentrated mainly on the Flat after receiving his licence in 1971, having Royal Ascot success in 1978 with the sprinter Sweet Mint.

Meade’s most recent Festival winner, Jeff Kidder, who won the Boodles Juvenile Hurdle in 2021 at 80/1, had started out on the Flat for the yard, and he trained his first Group 1 winner on the Flat the same year when Helvic Dream won the Tattersalls Gold Cup – the same gelding was demoted after passing the post first in last summer’s Galway Hurdle.

But with a Gold Cup contender in the yard again, the focus will be very much on Cheltenham for the next few months.

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