NOEL Meade is one of Ireland’s best trainers. He has shown that in spite of being champion National Hunt trainer here on eight occasions in nine years, only interrupted by a man called Willie Mullins, he has an admirable record too on the flat. By the way, Mullins succeeded Noel after his last championship win in 2006/7 and has never relinquished the title since.

Noel started training in 1970 with one horse, Tu Va after whom he named his stables, owned with his great friend, Mick Condra. Tu Va was bought at Goffs in Ballsbridge for 100gns from Buster Harty. That was the start of a career that has now spanned more than five and a half decades and countless winners. Meade has enjoyed Group 1 success on the flat with Helvic Dream in the Tattersalls Gold Cup, and he was a €12,000 purchase.

These days Noel has Peter Nolan by his side when it comes to scouting for future talent, and the winners keep flowing. While the stables at Castletown K.P. in Co Meath still house National Hunt horses, there is much more focus on the flat, with winners aplenty emerging, and many selling on to foreign racing jurisdictions.

Helvic Dream was a graduate of the 2018 Tattersalls Ireland September Sale, sold by Joanna Morgan. At the same sale, and also in Part 2 of that catalogue, was a colt by French Navy (Shamardal), a sire who never got beyond Group 3 level, though he won 11 races from the age of two to seven. His first crop yearlings were on sale that year, and Emmanuel Hughes gave just €4,000 for a colt out of the winning mare Scala Romana (Holy Roman Emperor).

Matt Duffy

The colt, named Layfayette, was bred the recently deceased Matt Duffy, and sold for him by Olive O’Connor. The following spring, he reappeared at the Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Breeze Up Sale, where he cost Meade a tasty €54,000. Though Peter Nolan did not have his name on the buyer’s sheet, Meade has said that it was Nolan who was impressed with the horse and his breeze. Patricia Hunt took over ownership of Layfayette, and look what he has done.

By winning the Listed Martin Molony Stakes at Limerick for the second time, at the age of nine, the gelding has taken his win tally to 11 and his winnings to more than €540,000 – exactly 10 times his purchase price. His next start, expected to be in mid-July, will be his 50th time to race. He is one of those sound, likeable and honest horses we all dream of one day owning. His three group wins have all been at the Curragh, alongside four wins in listed company.

French Navy stood for five seasons at Kildangan Stud and then headed to continue his career in India. His first crop there included one of four blacktype winners to date, the Indian 2000 Guineas winner Baychimo. Layfayette is by some way his best winner on the flat, and was born in the same crop as Marine Nationale, a dual Grade 1 Cheltenham winner of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Ownership of Layfayette’s dam passed to Matt’s son and daughter, Paul and Liz, who bred a second pattern winner from the mare, Atsila (Phoenix Of Spain). She won the Group 3 Athasi Stakes last year and finished just over a length behind Fallen Angel in the Group 1 Matron Stakes. No wonder the breeders retained Atsila’s full-brother for €100,000 at the foal sales last November. They have a half-brother, born this spring, by Look De Vega (Lope De Vega). Will the Shamardal/Lope De Vega cross work again?

Madbadanddangerous

A day after Layfayette won in Limerick, Meade continued his winning run at Down Royal, taking the feature there. This was the Ulster Derby and he won with the three-year-old Madbadanddangerous (Coulsty), bred by Suroben Limited and Summerhill Bloodstock. Suroben are mentioned on the previous page in relation to the Italian Oaks winner, while Summerhill Bloodstock is Tim Hyde, a brother of Valerie Osborne. The other partner in Suroben is John Osborne, a nephew of Matt Duffy.

Madbadanddangerous sold as a foal for €10,000 to Sladoo Farm, owned by Dermot and Claire Costello. They got just €1,000 more for him as a yearling, this time Nolan and Meade having their names on the docket. The gelding has now won twice, including at two, and placed three times in six runs. He races for Seamus Hunt, a brother-in-law of Layfayette’s owner Patricia.

The Ulster Derby winner is one of three winners for his unraced dam Bonnefio (Teofilo), but he is more precocious than they were. Mulsanne (Harzand) took until the age of six to win in the USA, while another daughter, Marvelosa (Ribchester), won at four. Bonnefio is bred in the purple, and the man who bred her was Anthony Oppenheimer at Hascombe & Valiant Studs.

Bonnefio has six winning siblings, including the stakes-placed Purple Ribbon (Gleneagles). I mention her first, as the other five are made up of two group winners and three listed winners who were all placed in pattern races. One of the six successful offspring from Crimson Ribbon (Lemon Drop Kid) stands tall, and this is the 2023 Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup winner Courage Mon Ami (Frankel). The immediate family had another boost this year when Title Role (Too Darn Hot) won the 2000 Guineas in Germany and the UAE.