Horse Racing Ireland have released a full flat racing programme for the months of June and July. It includes the big festival in Galway which will still be run on the same dates.
As I reported earlier this month Horse Racing is set to resume in Ireland behind closed doors on June 8th with action in Naas. There is in total 47 meetings in July alone. However, there will be three days now with no racing in month due to extra meetings been added. The director of horse racing Ireland Jason Morris said, “We recognise that there will be a large demand for opportunities to run and our aim is to provide all Flat horses with their first run as quickly as possible following the resumption of racing by offering a balanced programme across all age groups, distances and categories. There will be 53 flat meetings up to the end of July with this objective in mind”.
Mr Morris said that 22 national hunt meetings will take over June and July, compared to 17 between the same time last year. He continued, “There will be eight-race cards run at every opportunity where stable capacity allows, with the protocols requiring one stable per horse for hygiene reasons”.
The Galway Racing Festival will take place from July 27th to August 2nd. However, there will be some changes to recent year’s. The first two days of the festival will see flat racing only. This will be followed by National Hunt racing on the Wednesday. Thursday and Friday. The final two days of the meeting will be flat cards according to Horse Racing Ireland. Looking at some other courses, Killarney has seen it’s racing cut from five days to three days. Racing will begin in Cork on July 5th, which will be the first of four meetings at the track.
Bellewstown in Meath will host three meetings, with the first on July 2nd. Leopardstown will host meetings beginning on June 9th right up to the end of July. Meanwhile, the Curragh will host the Irish Tattersalls Gold Cup on Sunday the 26th of July.
The full list of horse racing meetings can be viewed here.
