YOU can look for the plot horses in the Galway Plate all you like, but you have to begin your assessment with Road To Riches, and it is very difficult to move past him.

So the Gigginstown House horse has top weight, he will have 11st 10lb to carry, which will be 9lb more than his highest-weighted rival, and history tells us that it is difficult for horses to carry big weights to victory in the Galway Plate. Ansar in 2005 is the last Plate winner to carry that type of burden. That was 11 years ago. Indeed, Ansar is the last winner to carry 11 stone or more.

But that does not tell the full story. Not many horses carry big weights in the Galway Plate. Last year, just six horses carried more than 11st and just one carried more than 11st 5lb.

In 2014, just five horses carried more that 11st, no horse carried more than 11st 5lb and Spring Heeled, who carried 11st 4lb, finished fourth behind the same Road To Riches.

Also, Road To Riches has won a Lexus Chase and finished third in a Cheltenham Gold Cup. It is rare that a horse of his class runs in a Galway Plate.

We know that Noel Meade’s horse goes well at Galway. On the only other occasion on which he has run at the venue, he won the Plate by 11 lengths under Shane Shortall. So he raced off a mark of 149 then, in 2014, and he will race off a mark of 162 on Wednesday, but it is difficult to argue that he would not have won the Plate in 2014 with 13lb more on his back. He probably had even more in hand than the 11-length winning margin.

And he is a better horse now than he was then. He has won his Lexus Chase and his JNWine.com Chase and he has finished third in his Gold Cup and in his Ryanair Chase since then.

Two miles, six and a half furlongs at Galway, with its sharp turns and its stiff incline, could be close to optimum for Noel Meade’s horse. He could be the first horse to win the Galway Plate twice since the aforementioned Ansar and the first to win it in non-consecutive years since Royal Day in 1967 and 1969.