Read the latest Meetingofthewaters Horse Racing profile, including race record, form, news, age, weight, owner, trainer, results and prize money.
Top owner JP McManus splashed the cash with less than a week to go to the 2024 Cheltenham Festival as he added Meetingofthewaters to his string. McManus is the most successful owner in the history of the Cheltenham Festival.
The high-profile owner has a long line of purchases from fellow shrewd operator Paul Byrne, including The Shunter, Corbetts Cross and Feronily, and continued their alliance by acquiring Meetingofthewaters.
Meetingofthewaters is trained by Willie Mullins, Ireland's perennial champion trainer and the most successful handler of all time at the Cheltenham Festival, now with a stunning tally of 103 winners following the 2024 showpiece in the Cotswolds.
Mullins is on target to be champion trainer in Ireland for the 18th time and has been leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival an incredible 11 times, all of them since 2011.
He continues to realign the boundaries of what is possible within National Hunt racing. At the Dublin Racing Festival in 2024 the Closutton supremo won all eight Grade 1 races.
He has won the Grand National at Aintree just once, however, when Hedgehunter justified favouritism under Ruby Walsh in 2005.
Meetingofthewaters is a seven-year-old gelding by Court Cave, out of the mare Maisy Daisy.
After finishing third in the Ultima Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, Meetingofthewaters has an official rating of 149 in Britain. He ran his best race so far in that Cotswolds contest, achieving a Racing Post Rating of 151 as he finished third behind Kim Bailey's impressive winner Chianti Classico.
As things stand, Meetingofthewaters would carry 10st 4lb in the Grand National, though the weights for the race could be altered significantly if, as is now expected, proposed top-weight Hewick does not take part.
Meetingofthewaters is set to run in the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday 13th April on his next start. He's priced at 14/1 to win the Merseyside marathon, where he will be able to compete from an official mark of 145 – leaving him 4lb 'well in' after his Cheltenham effort.
Meetingofthewaters began life with Eugene O'Sullivan, winning a point-to-point at Boulta in December 2021 on his first outing between the flags.
He won a Downpatrick bumper the following May and by December 2022 was winning his first hurdles race, a handicap over 2m4f at Cork off a mark of 106.
In the summer of 2023, he was bought by Patrick Mullins and transferred to Closutton. He won on third start over fences at Cork that November, after which Paul Byrne bought the horse, and then landed a €112k Leopardstown handicap chase at Christmas. He unseated at the first fence during the Dublin Racing Festival in February 2024 before changing hands once more to move into the McManus ownership.
He went off a 6/1 chance to win the Ultima at Cheltenham but could only manage third spot as UK-based duo Chianti Classico and Twig finished ahead of him, with some 16-lengths back to the fourth-place finisher in what was a very competitive handicap event.
Meetingofthewaters has bagged £136,531 in prizemoney in his UK runs, while he has also banked over €130,000 in his Irish runs so far.
Given the high-profile ownership changes he has undergone in recent times, and his excellent recent run at the Cheltenham Festival, all eyes will be drawn towards Meetingofthewaters if he lines up in the Aintree Grand National.
Just two years ago, Noble Yeats became the first seven-year-old winner of the great race since Bogskar in 1941, now Meetingofthewaters could be attempting to make it two seven-year-old winners in three years.
He's one of 13 possible Mullins-trained contenders for the Aintree showpiece and, at number 39 on the list, needs just three dropouts to confirm his place in the line-up, something that looks very likely to happen as Shark Hanlon has already all but confirmed that potential top-weight Hewick will have a different target at Aintree having missed the Gold Cup at Cheltenham on account of the soft conditions.
Any odds displayed were correct at the time of writing and are subject to fluctuation.