Listowel Racecourse

Listowel is a left-handed, sharp track. It has an inner circuit of roughly one mile and an outer circuit of about one mile and a furlong (some guides give the jumps circuit as up to about a mile and a quarter), plus a chute for seven-furlong and one-mile starts. The Flat run-in is about two furlongs; the jumps run-in around 200 yards. The layout suits speedy, handy types, and its tightness means coming from the rear is difficult and even three-mile chases make modest stamina demands. A noted feature is the black, holding soil, which can ride very testingly and strings fields out.

Racing at the current site close to Listowel town centre began in 1858, and the course celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008. Its principal meeting, now the September Harvest Festival, traces back to the North Kerry Hunt Steeplechase Meeting. Originally a short fixture, the festival grew with its popularity and was extended to its current seven-day length in 2002. Listowel is a dual-purpose course staging both Flat and National Hunt racing across a small number of meetings each year, the September festival being by far the most significant.

The Harvest Festival each September is a seven-day mixed Flat and National Hunt meeting and, by attendance, ranks as one of Ireland's largest racing festivals after Galway. Its feature is the Guinness Kerry National, a competitive staying handicap chase run over about three miles (2m 7f 180y) on the Wednesday of the festival, worth around €200,000. It is graded as a Grade 3 handicap chase (formerly carrying the older Irish "Grade A" handicap designation). Listowel also stages a smaller fixture earlier in the year.

Listowel Racecourse sits close to the centre of Listowel, a market town in north County Kerry, in the south-west of Ireland. It lies roughly 25km north-east of Tralee and within reach of Limerick (about 80km) and Cork. There is no rail station at the course; visitors typically take the train from Dublin Heuston to Tralee or Limerick and continue by road, with additional bus services laid on during the Harvest Festival. The festival is a major event in the local calendar and a long-established part of the town's September life.