The Irish Champions Festival: A Complete Guide

When and where is the Irish Champions Festival?

The 2026 Irish Champions Festival runs across the weekend of Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September, and, unusually for a major festival, it is staged at two racecourses. Day one is at Leopardstown in south Dublin; day two moves about 50km south-west to the Curragh in Co. Kildare. Between them the two cards carry six Group 1 races and over €5 million in prize money.

Saturday 12 September at Leopardstown is the track's biggest Flat day of the year: a nine-race card with five Group races, headed by the Group 1 Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, covered in depth in the Irish Champion Stakes section below. Sunday 13 September at the Curragh answers with four Group 1s and nearly €2.5 million in prize money, built around the Comer Group Irish St Leger; see day two at the Curragh for the full picture.

Leopardstown sits at Foxrock, Dublin 18, about 8km south of the city centre, which makes Saturday unusually easy to reach without a car. The Luas Green Line runs from St Stephen's Green to Sandyford in roughly 20 minutes, with a short walk or a complimentary race-day shuttle from there; a shuttle also runs from Blackrock DART station on major days. Drivers should use Exit 15 off the M50, where parking is free. Our Leopardstown course guide has the full travel and ticket detail.

The Curragh is a different sort of journey: the course stands on the open Curragh plain between Newbridge and Kildare town, about 50 minutes from Dublin by car via the N7 and Exit 12 off the M7, with free parking. There is no racecourse station in operation, but mainline Irish Rail trains from Dublin Heuston serve Kildare and Newbridge, and a complimentary shuttle bus runs from Kildare station at every fixture, with a Newbridge service added on the biggest days; check curragh.ie before travelling. The Curragh course guide covers the venue in full.

Dates for 2027 have not been published yet. The festival has settled into mid-September since it launched in 2014, so expect a similar slot, but treat anything beyond the confirmed 2026 weekend as provisional until Horse Racing Ireland announces it.

The Irish Champion Stakes

The Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes is the race the whole weekend is built around: a Group 1 over a mile and two furlongs (2,012 metres) at Leopardstown, open to horses aged three and up at weight-for-age, and worth €1.25 million in 2025. It headlines the nine-race Saturday card on 12 September 2026, one of five Group races on the day, and since 2009 it has carried a Breeders' Cup Challenge berth, with the winner earning an automatic invitation to the Breeders' Cup Turf. Its calling card is the clash it reliably produces between the best of the Classic generation and their elders.

First run in 1976 as the Joe McGrath Memorial Stakes, named after the founder of the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake, it has held Group 1 status from the start. It spent 1984 to 1990 at Phoenix Park as the Phoenix Champion Stakes while Leopardstown was redeveloped, then returned in 1991 under its present name when Phoenix Park closed. The test itself is sneakily demanding: Leopardstown's straight rises all the way to the line over the final three furlongs, so ten-furlong class alone is not enough without the stamina to see it out.

The roll of honour reads like a history of European middle-distance racing: Sadler's Wells (1984, at Phoenix Park), Suave Dancer (1991), Pilsudski (1997), Daylami (1999), Giant's Causeway (2000), Fantastic Light (2001), High Chaparral (2003) and Golden Horn (2015). The 2009 running belongs in its own sentence: Sea The Stars, under Michael Kinane, beat Fame And Glory by two and a half lengths in his unbeaten three-year-old campaign. Recent winners keep the standard: Auguste Rodin (2023), the William Haggas-trained Economics (2024, ridden by Tom Marquand) and Delacroix, the 4/7 winner in 2025.

The records are lopsided. Aidan O'Brien has won it 13 times, including six of the seven runnings to 2025, from Giant's Causeway through to Delacroix. Michael Kinane is the leading jockey on seven wins, spanning Carroll House in 1989 to Sea The Stars twenty years later. Only two horses have won it twice, Dylan Thomas (2006 and 2007) and Magical (2019 and 2020). The market tends to get it right, with 12 winning favourites in the last 20 renewals, though Decorated Knight landed the 2017 running at 25/1; that is a description of how the race goes, not a reason to expect a betting edge.

Saturday's supporting Group 1s and the rest of the card are covered in the weekend day by day, and the festival's answer at the Curragh follows in day two at the Curragh.

Day Two at the Curragh

On Sunday 13 September 2026 the festival moves about 30 miles south-west to the Curragh in County Kildare, the home of Irish Flat racing, for a card carrying four Group 1 races and nearly EUR2.5 million in prize money. Where Leopardstown's Saturday settles the middle-distance argument in the Irish Champion Stakes, the Curragh's Sunday crowns a staying champion and gives the season's best two-year-olds their biggest stage yet.

The feature is the Comer Group International Irish St Leger over one mile six furlongs, the fifth and final Irish Classic of the year. First run in 1915 for three-year-olds only, it has been open to older horses since 1983, which sets it apart from the Doncaster St Leger and makes it a true all-aged staying championship. The roll of honour shows what that openness produces: Vinnie Roe won four in a row from 2001 to 2004 for Dermot Weld and Pat Smullen, Kyprios took it in 2022 and 2024 for Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore, Search For A Song went back to back in 2019 and 2020, and the 2025 winner was the five-year-old Al Riffa for Joseph O'Brien. Recent winners have ranged from three to seven years old, and the Curragh's galloping, right-handed sweep with its stiff, slightly uphill three-furlong run-in is exactly the test a race like this deserves.

The two juvenile Group 1s regularly shape the following spring's Classics. The Goffs Vincent O'Brien National Stakes, seven furlongs for two-year-olds, dates from 1849 and was renamed in 2009 in memory of the great trainer; its winners include Sir Ivor, Teofilo, Gleneagles, Churchill and Pinatubo. The Moyglare Stud Stakes, seven furlongs for two-year-old fillies and a Group 1 since 1983, has an equally strong record as a pointer: Minding won it in 2015, Tahiyra in 2022, and the 2025 winner Precise came back to land the 2026 Irish 1,000 Guineas.

The fourth Group 1, the Derrinstown Stud Flying Five Stakes over five furlongs, was upgraded in 2018 to become the first Irish Group 1 sprint open to horses aged three and older. Highfield Princess (2022), Bradsell (2024) and Arizona Blaze (2025) are recent winners, and it gives the day a burst of raw speed among all the stamina and potential.

Aidan O'Brien's teams tend to be strong across the card, though a dominant stable is a fact of the formbook, not a reason to expect a winning bet. Exact off-times for the 2026 Curragh card had not been published at the time of writing; the full running order for both days is set out in the weekend day by day.

The Weekend Day by Day

The 2026 Irish Champions Festival runs across one weekend and two courses: Saturday 12 September at Leopardstown, then Sunday 13 September at the Curragh. Between them the two cards stage six Group 1 races and over €5 million in prize money.

Saturday is Leopardstown's biggest Flat day of the year: a nine-race card carrying five Group races. Beyond the two established Group 1s, the supporting programme includes the KPMG Champions Juvenile Stakes (which carries a Breeders' Cup Juvenile "Win and You're In" berth and which the festival's own site lists at a newly upgraded grade for 2026), the Group 2 Solonaway Stakes, a Group 3, a Listed race and valuable Premier handicaps, among them the 1m5f Petingo Handicap and the 7f Autumn Handicap. The day doubles as a key trial for the Arc, British Champions Day and the Breeders' Cup; the feature itself is covered in the Irish Champion Stakes.

Sunday moves to the Curragh in Co. Kildare, about 30 miles south-west of Dublin, for four Group 1s and nearly €2.5 million in prize money. The Irish St Leger is the fifth and final Irish Classic of the season, while the Moyglare Stud Stakes (fillies) and the National Stakes (the leading two-year-old colts' race) shape the following season's Classics, and the Flying Five adds a championship sprint. The full card is broken down in day two at the Curragh.

Exact off-times for the Sunday features had not been published at the time of writing; big-day racing at both tracks typically begins in the early afternoon, with the features mid-afternoon. Dates for 2027 are not yet confirmed, but the festival is expected to keep its mid-September slot.

Atmosphere and visiting

Here is the honest crowd picture. The Irish Champions Festival is Ireland's biggest Flat weekend on paper, six Group 1s and over €5 million, but it does not draw jumps-festival crowds. Leopardstown's record days are in winter: the 2025 Christmas Festival pulled 67,202 across four days and the 2024 Dublin Racing Festival Saturday set the modern single-day record of 20,017. The September Saturday is Leopardstown's biggest Flat fixture, but the record crowds come in winter. The Curragh leg is quieter still: Irish Times reporting put its Champions Festival day at about 8,645, on a site of roughly 5,000 acres with a grandstand HRI says caters for up to 6,000 over four levels. For a visitor that is a genuine plus. You get championship racing with room at the parade ring and no scramble for a view.

Tickets are straightforward and worth booking ahead. At Leopardstown, third-party guides put general admission around €15 to €20 for ordinary fixtures, with Premium Level (reserved grandstand seat, exclusive bars) above that; under-12s go free with a paying adult. Confirm current festival prices on the official leopardstown.com. At the Curragh, general admission starts around €15, rising to €25 to €30 on festival days, with a 25 per cent early-bird discount until midnight the night before; under-18s go free on most days, though a small charge can apply to 13 to 18s on Classic days. Parking is free at both courses. The Luas Green Line to Sandyford plus a free shuttle serves Leopardstown; for the Curragh, take a train to Kildare or Newbridge and the complimentary shuttle. Dress is smart casual at both, with no official dress code.

One honest note on betting at the festival: both tracks have Tote and on-course bookmakers, and favourites win often at this level (12 of the last 20 Irish Champion Stakes favourites obliged), but backing favourites blindly loses money to starting price over time. Short-priced winners are not a route to profit. If you do plan a bet, compare the current sign-up deals on our bookmaker offers page before you travel rather than taking the first price on course.

For what runs when across the two days, see the weekend day by day; for the Curragh card itself, see day two at the Curragh.