The simple formula of picking people in form has apparently eluded umpteen soccer and rugby managers through the years but racing's greedy have long since twigged it. That is why any animal Noel Meade sends to the races this holiday period will be scrutinised intensely. The Co Meath trainer's horses aren't so much on fire as threatening the city suburbs.

In terms of prizemoney alone, Meade is second only to Aidan O'Brien, who almost invariably leads the table. In races won, however, Meade's total puts him within hollering distance of O'Brien and almost out of sight of those chasing him. If the pattern continues of Meade-trained animals accelerating rapidly away from their rivals, then it will only be a continuation of what has financed many a punter's Christmas. The beauty is that there is no apparent reason for the streak to stop.

The trainer, however, is taking nothing for granted. That's something that everyone involved in racing quickly learns, but the game still seems to insist on giving refresher courses. Meade, the personable and articulate face of his profession, felt the full horror of the lesson almost 12 months ago to the day.

Johnny Setaside, a seven-year-old Grand National prospect and the best chaser in Meade's stable, had just had his greatest success, landing the £50,000 Ericsson Chase after a gruelling slog around Leopardstown's three miles. It seemed only a marker to the future, but walking back to the winners' enclosure the strapping Johnny Setaside collapsed after breaking an artery and his lungs fatally filled with blood.

"Nothing could be done. My own vet, Paddy Kelly, was on duty at Leopardstown that day and he just said: `Noel, I think he's going to go.' I knew myself. Once he went down, his chances of getting up were very slim or nil. Losing Johnny was a disaster. To win a race as valuable as that and going home in tears was terrible," Meade says simply, the emotion still only too real. But while emotion has its place in National Hunt racing, so has hard-headed reality. "Maybe this sounds a bit ruthless but it would have been even tougher if it had happened at the last fence. In racing, every win has to be earned," he adds, not needing to explain that disaster can so often be just around the corner. Meade knows that only too well. A week before Johnny Setaside's death, the promising hurdler Alasad had had to be put down, and later in March two of Meade's three runners in the Irish Grand National, Coq Hardi Affair and The Latvian Lark, were killed. Four quality horses gone in four months.

A lesson well learned and a lesson that makes the current success all the sweeter, especially since it's the fruition of almost four years of planning.

Meade had had enough of trying to play the clique of top flat trainers at their own expensive numbers game and reverted back to the sport that had brought him to prominence in the first place.

"I made a conscious decision to raise our game on the jumping side because with the sort of money needed to compete on the flat, we had no chance. Losing those four horses last season put a big dent in our strength, but it is very satisfying to see young horses bought a few years ago coming though now," Meade comments.

Three of the best young hurdlers in the country now reside in Meade's yard and at least two of them will run this weekend. Walk On Mix is scheduled to appear in today's IAWS Novices Hurdle while either Native Estates or Kilcalm King will run in tomorrow's Stillorgan Orchard Hurdle.

The latter two horses were bought unbroken and are now worth the sort of money that won't be found down the back of any sofa. Satisfying indeed.

The highlight on today's card, however, is the Paddy Power Chase, a £105,000 handicap which caters for the sort of horse that is the backbone of steeplechasing but hardly in the very top rank. The trainers of those top-rank animals may wonder about the economics of seeing decent but hardly spectacular horses rewarded so well, but Meade, who runs Heist, isn't complaining.

"I think it's great," he says, laughing, before adding: "The top horses have the Ericsson and the Hennessy later on and I think it's great that the ordinary man is getting a chance in such a race. That's important. Heist has a sound chance and has jumped well enough for Jason (Titley) in his last two races. He'll never be a lightning jumper but he's adequate and being in the middle of the handicap, he has his shout."

As has Cockney Lad in his chosen race, Eton Gale . . . etc, etc. The prospects are there and success has a habit of breeding even more success, especially at the Leopardstown Christmas fixture.

"Leopardstown is in the same league as the Fairyhouse Easter festival and a winner there on TV is without doubt a help to any trainer in raising his profile. A televised winner makes a wider spread of people aware of you and while they may not be in touch the following day or week, the name hopefully stays in their minds," Meade says.

Not that the business of training a winner, any winner, is easy. Meade admits to amazement at being surrounded by hacks in a winners' enclosure and being asked where his winner is going next, as if every horse's campaign is mapped out with the precision of a Rommel detailing a regiment. "It's so hard to win any race that I'm usually just delighted to be in the winners' enclosure at all," he says.

As the man in form, however, many of the thousands at Leopardstown will be hoping to share the delight the odds suggest will be his.