Midlands National Day at Kilbeggan: The Complete Guide

The Midlands National is a Listed handicap chase, classified as Class 1, run over 3m1f at Kilbeggan. Some racecards state the trip as 3m1½f. It is a stamina test jumped over sixteen fences, and Horse Racing Ireland describes it as one of the most valuable races of the summer jumps calendar. The race is run in July as the centrepiece of Midlands National day, Kilbeggan's biggest fixture.

Detail	Value
Race	Midlands National (Handicap Chase)
Grade	Listed / Grade B (Class 1)
Distance	3m1f (some racecards: 3m1½f)
Fences	16
Course	Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath
Meeting	Midlands National day, July
First run	1997
Prize fund	€100,000 in recent years (winner €59,000 in 2025)
Sponsor	Kilmurray's Homevalue Hardware, Mullingar

The prize fund has climbed steadily over the race's life. Kilbeggan Racecourse records that the Midlands National has "gone from €10,000 to a race of €100,000," having stood at €75,000 before the 2022 upgrade. In 2025 the winner, Amirite, received €59,000 of the total. The distance was increased to 3m1f in 2013.

The title sponsorship has moved through several hands. AXA came on board in 2019, branded as AXA Farm Insurance, with Kilbeggan and Horse Racing Ireland funding doubling the value to €100,000. Since 2023 the race has been backed by Kilmurray's Homevalue Hardware of Mullingar, run by Dermot and Conor Kilmurray, with 2025 its third year as title sponsor.

Kilbeggan is a sharp, right-handed, undulating oval of about nine furlongs, so a 3m1f chase means close to two full circuits. The chase track carries six fences per circuit and runs outside the tighter inner hurdles loop. There is a notably sharp bend after the penultimate fence, followed by an uphill run-in of about 300 yards to the winning post. The layout favours handy, speedy front-runners and sound jumpers over long-striding gallopers or dour stayers, and the track is well known for producing course specialists. Over 3m1f and sixteen fences stamina still matters, but a horse that can travel and hold a prominent position has the ground in its favour.

The Midlands National was first run in 1997. Racing around Kilbeggan is recorded as far back as 1840, and the present Loughnagore site has staged meetings since 1901, but the race itself is a modern creation, built to give Kilbeggan's summer season a marquee handicap chase of its own.

The inaugural running in 1997 was won by Cristy's Picnic, trained by Mouse Morris and part-owned by the film director Neil Jordan and the actor Stephen Rea. The great grey Desert Orchid paraded at Kilbeggan that day, lending the new race a note of occasion from the start. In its early years the race was worth around €10,000, and the winning distance was set at its current 3m1f from 2013.

The defining change came in 2022, when the Midlands National was upgraded to a Grade B contest and the prize fund rose from €75,000 to €100,000. Kilbeggan Racecourse marked it as "the first time for Kilbeggan to ever stage a Graded race," a milestone for a small jumps-only track that had spent decades building its summer programme. The promotion, together with the rising fund, lifted the race from a competitive local handicap into a target for the leading yards in the country.

Sponsorship has run alongside that growth. AXA doubled the value to €100,000 when it came on board in 2019, and since 2023 Kilmurray's Homevalue Hardware of Mullingar has carried the title. Across the modern era the honours have been shared by the biggest names in Irish jumping. Noel Meade is the leading trainer with three wins, and Gordon Elliott, Mouse Morris and Philip Fenton have each taken two.

One absence stands out. Willie Mullins, the champion trainer and otherwise a Kilbeggan course specialist, had not won the Midlands National as of the 2026 renewal, despite the race running since 1997. It is a quirk of a handicap that has stayed genuinely open, and one that a single future winner would erase.

The Midlands National has run since 1997, but a full year-by-year roll of honour is only verified for recent renewals. The modern record, from 2016 to 2025, with starting prices, reads as follows.

Year	Winner	Trainer	Jockey	SP
2025	Amirite	Henry de Bromhead	Darragh O'Keeffe	6/1
2024	Ida's Boy	Noel Meade	Conor Stone-Walsh	40/1
2023	Foxy Jacks	M F Morris	Gavin Brouder	12/1
2022	Hurricane Georgie	Gordon Elliott	Jack Kennedy	8/1
2021	The Big Lense	Mrs Denise Foster	Jody McGarvey	20/1
2020	Freewheelin Dylan	Dermot A McLoughlin	Ricky Doyle	11/1
2019	Na Trachtalai Abu	J Motherway	Jonathan Burke	12/1
2018	Rogue Angel	Gordon Elliott	Jack Kennedy	4/1 fav
2017	Phils Magic	A J Martin	Donagh Meyler	7/2 fav
2016	Tulsa Jack	Noel Meade	Jonathan Moore	6/1

Three earlier winners are individually confirmed. Cristy's Picnic took the inaugural 1997 running for Mouse Morris. Rockholm Boy won in 2001 for Michael Hourigan and went on to land the 2002 Galway Plate at 20/1, the first clear proof of the stepping-stone link. Patton won in 2006 for Noel Meade and Niall P Madden in a time of 5:16.60, still the fastest winner recorded for the race. A complete verified list of the runnings between 1997 and 2015 is not available, so the years in between are left out rather than guessed at.

Among trainers, Noel Meade is the most successful with three wins, Patton in 2006, Tulsa Jack in 2016 and Ida's Boy in 2024. Gordon Elliott, Mouse Morris and Philip Fenton each have two. Jack Kennedy is the leading jockey with two, on Rogue Angel in 2018 and Hurricane Georgie in 2022.

Several runnings stand out. Hurricane Georgie won by thirteen lengths for Elliott and Kennedy in 2022, the first running at the new Grade B status. Ida's Boy gave Meade and the Gigginstown operation a popular local win at 40/1 in 2024, the biggest-priced winner of recent renewals. In 2025 Amirite held on by a head from Mica Malpic for Henry de Bromhead and Darragh O'Keeffe.

The defining recent story belongs to Freewheelin Dylan. Dermot McLoughlin's gelding made all under Ricky Doyle to win the 2020 Midlands National by a nose at 11/1, in a behind-closed-doors meeting during the pandemic. The following spring he won the 2021 Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse at 150/1, again under Doyle, becoming the longest-priced winner in the history of a race first run in 1870. Kilbeggan's Paddy Dunican called him "a bit of a Kilbeggan specialist, having won here three times already," which ties the track's flagship handicap to one of the sport's great outsider tales.

The Midlands National is a competitive handicap chase, and the recent results reflect it. Across the runnings from 2016 to 2025, only two winners obliged as market leaders, Phils Magic at 7/2 in 2017 and Rogue Angel at 4/1 in 2018. The rest came home at prices out to 40/1. That is the normal shape of a big-field handicap, where the weights are framed to bunch the field and the favourite has no special claim.

Pattern	What the record shows
Favourites	Two winning favourites in the ten runnings 2016 to 2025
Winning prices	Range from 7/2 (Phils Magic, 2017) out to 40/1 (Ida's Boy, 2024)
Leading stable	Noel Meade, three wins in the modern era
Track profile	Sharp right-handed oval, uphill run-in, handy and prominent types favoured

Two descriptive points are worth keeping in mind. First, Kilbeggan's tight turns and uphill finish tend to favour horses that can travel and hold a position, rather than long-striding gallopers who need the track to open up, which is why the course is known for producing specialists. Second, the strongest yards, Noel Meade, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead among them, have a heavy presence on the day, which is context rather than a tip. These are historical patterns drawn from a small sample of runnings, not predictions, and a country handicap chase can be turned by the ground and the weights in any given year.

None of this is a system. Backing favourites loses money to starting price over the long run, and no staking plan or reliance on the market leader is profitable over time. The starting price already contains the public's best estimate of a horse's chance plus the bookmaker's margin, so backing the obvious time after time hands that margin away with every bet. The trends above describe how the race has fallen, not how it will fall next. Read the form, the weights and the going, treat any model or favourite as fallible, and stake only what you are content to lose.

If betting stops being fun, take a break. Support and free tools are available through GambleAware and the GamCare helpline. Never chase losses, and set your limits before the first race rather than during it.

The Midlands National sits at the heart of Kilbeggan's July fixture, the biggest day of a season made up mostly of summer evening meetings. In 2025 it fell on Friday 11 July, and in 2026 on Friday 10 July. The card runs to seven or eight races and is built around the €100,000 Midlands National and the €30,000 Writech Handicap Hurdle, with the gates open from 3pm and the first race off at around 4.30pm.

The day's clearest link to the wider season is the Galway Plate. The Midlands National is long established as a stepping-stone to the Plate, run at the Galway Festival later in July. Rockholm Boy set the template, winning the 2001 Midlands National and then the 2002 Galway Plate at 20/1, and the recent winners from 2022 to 2024 all went on to run in the Plate next time out. Kilbeggan reinforces the connection with a dedicated Galway Plate Trial handicap chase on its June card, so the track feeds runners toward Galway across the early summer.

The meeting belongs to the Irish summer jumping season, when the smaller country tracks come into their own. This is the stretch of the calendar after the spring festivals, when National Hunt racing moves to the tighter courses and the leading yards spread their strength around the country. Kilbeggan's July date makes Midlands National day one of the standout midlands fixtures of that period, drawing Meade, Elliott and de Bromhead to a jumps-only track that most of the big stables visit only a handful of times a year.

Kilbeggan runs around eight to ten fixtures between April or May and September, so Midlands National day is the peak of a compact programme rather than a one-off. The season opens with a spring National Hunt meeting in April and continues through worker-friendly evening cards, including a bank-holiday fixture in late May and Monday-evening meetings through June. Midlands National day is where the biggest crowd, the best horses and the fullest card come together, which is why it doubles as Kilbeggan's Ladies Day and its social showpiece.

For the full festival and visitor picture, and for the track's history, legends and betting profile in one place, see the Kilbeggan Racecourse Complete Guide.

Kilbeggan's racing is broadcast live on Racing TV, which holds the media rights for the course in Ireland and the UK, so Midlands National day can be followed from home across both territories. On the day itself the gates open at 3pm and the first race is off at around 4.30pm, with the feature run through the evening as part of a seven-to-eight-race card.

For anyone going in person, the course is at Loughnagore, on the outskirts of Kilbeggan town in Co. Westmeath, Eircode N91 RK6P, about 1.6km from the town square on the north side. By road it sits on the M6 Dublin to Galway motorway, roughly an hour from Dublin, 13 miles (21km) from Mullingar, about 20 miles from Athlone and 8 miles from Tullamore. Bus Éireann serves Kilbeggan town from Dublin's Busáras, and the nearest airport is Dublin, just over an hour away. There is no rail station at the course, and there is parking on-site.

Standard admission is around €15 on the day, reduced to about €10 when bought online in advance. A Summer Party Pack is offered at about €23 per person and includes admission along with food and drink vouchers and a racecard. Children are welcomed on the family fun days, and there is no strict dress code, though Midlands National day doubles as Kilbeggan's Ladies Day and many racegoers dress smartly. The day carries a Sustainable Style Ladies Competition, with a prize worth €4,000 including €3,000 in cash.

The atmosphere is the reason to go. Midlands National day has been described as the social event of the year in the midlands, with a big crowd, live music on the hill, family entertainment and a party feel around the parade ring and the marquee. Attendances have grown from 20,000 in 1995 to 50,000 in 2024, and the business community contributed almost €100,000 in sponsorship in 2024. It is a day built around the racing and the setting rather than the betting, and it is best enjoyed on those terms.