Sligo's August Festival: The Complete Guide

The August meeting is carried by two feature races, one on each day. Neither is graded or Listed, and both are handicaps, but between them they give the fixture its shape.

The Connacht Oaks. The headline Flat race is the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Connacht Oaks Fillies Handicap, run on the opening day, Diageo Day. Despite the name, it has nothing in common with the Curragh's Irish Oaks beyond the word. The Irish Oaks is a Group 1 Classic for three-year-old fillies; the Connacht Oaks is a handicap open to fillies aged three and upwards, restricted to female runners, over a middle-distance trip of about a mile and a quarter. The exact yardage has moved a little year to year (renewals have been carded at 1m2f 103y, 1m2f 110y and 1m2f 129y), so it is best read as roughly 1m2f. It is sponsored by the Irish European Breeders Fund. Prize money has grown from a €26,000 fund in 2023 to €30,000 in 2025, with €18,000 to the winner. The racecourse has described it as the feature race of Diageo Day.

The feature handicap hurdle. The National Hunt evening card on day two is headed by an extended handicap hurdle for four-year-olds and upwards over about 2m4f to 2m5f. Timeform and the course-guide literature call this the Guinness Sligo Handicap Hurdle and put its value at around €11,500 to the winner. That name should be treated with care: in the actual result cards of recent seasons (2023 to 2025) the feature handicap hurdle has run under a different commercial sponsor title rather than as a race literally named the Guinness Sligo Handicap Hurdle, while a Guinness-sponsored handicap in those years has attached to a Flat race at the meeting. The race itself is a handicap, not a graded or Listed event.

Feature race	Code	Day	Distance	Age / sex	Winner's prize
Connacht Oaks (Irish EBF)	Flat	Diageo Day	about 1m2f	fillies 3yo+	€18,000 (2025)
Feature handicap hurdle	Jumps	Ladies Day	about 2m4f-2m5f	4yo+	about €11,500 (guide figure)

Read the winner's prize for the hurdle as a guide-book figure rather than a confirmed current fund, and the distances as conventional approximations. The point that holds firm is the grade: nothing on either card is black-type. For where these races sit in the wider Sligo calendar, see The Festivals in the complete guide.

Racing in County Sligo is old. The earliest recorded meeting under Turf Club rules took place at Bowmore, Rosses Point, in September 1781, a four-day festival over a three-mile horseshoe course by the sea with stakes of 200 guineas. Racing continued there into the 1840s, moved to a new course at Hazelwood on John Wynne's land from 1873, and stayed on the shores of Lough Gill until the last Hazelwood meeting on 8 April 1942.

The August meeting as it exists today belongs to the Cleveragh era. After Hazelwood closed, Sligo Corporation bought land at Cleveragh Demesne, the "Pump Field", from the Wood-Martin family; the racing authorities approved the site in 1949 and the current course opened on Wednesday 24 August 1955. That inaugural card drew more than 7,000 racegoers in bright sunshine, with the Mayor of Sligo, E. Tolan, declaring the course open and the first race off at 3pm. The honours for the first winner on the new track were shared by trainer Dan Moore and jockey Pat Doyle. From the very first card the Yeats connection was made explicit, the programme including a Lough Gill Maiden Plate and a Benbulben Handicap Hurdle in tribute to the country around the course.

That late-August timing is the root of the modern flagship fixture. Over the decades the two-day August meeting settled into the busiest slot in the Sligo year, combining a Flat card and a National Hunt evening card and drawing the track's biggest crowds. Its position in the calendar, immediately after the Galway Festival, has helped it hold that status: trainers and racegoers moving on from Ballybrit find Sligo a natural next stop.

The venue around the racing has been rebuilt in stages. A capital development completed for the 2013 season, costed at between €2m and €2.5m by different sources, delivered a new grandstand, pavilion bar, Tote facilities, offices, turnstiles and jockey changing rooms. In October 2015 Horse Racing Ireland approved a grant of close to €800,000 towards further upgrades, part of a wider programme including a two-storey hospitality building overlooking the parade ring. The full course history sits in the Sligo complete guide.

A country track with no black-type race keeps a modest roll of honour, and Sligo's winners tend to be regionally rather than nationally known. The lore of the August meeting sits more in its leading connections and its landmark days than in a single champion horse.

Willie Mullins, the course record holder over jumps. If Sligo has a defining name, it is Willie Mullins. He is the outstanding jumps trainer at the track, with 30 jumps wins since 2009, comfortably clear of Gordon Elliott on 18, at a strike rate Geegeez records as 48.39%. That figure is exceptional: Sligo is one of only a handful of Irish courses where his win strike rate has topped 40% over a meaningful sample, and one of a smaller group still where it has passed 50%. On the Flat the leading trainer is Dermot Weld, with 17 wins since 2009, roughly twice the tally of his nearest rival Michael Mulvany; Weld also saddled the 2019 Connacht Oaks winner Kastasa. Among current riders, Paul Townend and Mark Walsh head the jumps list and Billy Lee and Declan McDonogh the Flat.

The Connacht Oaks roll of honour. The fillies' handicap has thrown up some big-priced winners, Starry Heavens landing it at 18/1 in 2023 for Mrs John Harrington and Siobhan Rutledge. Recent winners, drawn from the racecard "previous years" records:

Year	Winner	Jockey	SP	Trainer
2025	Lady Lunette	C.T. Keane	9/1	R.P. Cody
2024	No Niki No	C.D. Hayes	7/2	Eoghan Joseph O'Neill
2023	Starry Heavens	Siobhan Rutledge	18/1	Mrs John Harrington
2022	Corky	M.P. Sheehy	10/1	Joseph Patrick O'Brien
2021	Miss Myers	W.J. Lee	5/1	M.C. Grassick
2020	Abandoned	n/a	n/a	n/a
2019	Kastasa	A.J. Slattery	11/4	D.K. Weld
2018	Echo Park	C. O'Donoghue	3/1	Mrs John Harrington

A verified year-by-year roll for the feature handicap hurdle is thinner. The recent runnings that can be sourced are Emily In Paris (11/2, 2023) for D.E. Fitzgerald, Early Arrival (4/1, 2024) trained by James M. Barcoe and ridden by Kieran Callaghan, and Fortunate Lighting (16/1, 2025). Earlier winners could not be confirmed and are left out rather than guessed at.

The days people remember. The single most famous occasion in the track's modern history came in May 2015, when the then Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, now King Charles III and Queen Camilla, attended an evening meeting during the course's 60th-anniversary year. They presented the prize for the specially named Duke and Duchess of Cornwall Mares' Maiden Hurdle, won by Mollyanna, trained by Colin Bowe and ridden by Mark Walsh; the Duchess bought the mare soon afterwards. The August meeting has its own place in the record books too: in July 2018 Patrick Mullins rode his 546th winner at Sligo, on Queens Boulevard for his father Willie, to become the winning-most amateur rider in Irish racing history, passing Ted Walsh.

Sligo is a specialist's course, and the August meeting rewards anyone who reads the track before the form. These are descriptive patterns, not tips, and none of them offers a way to beat the book. Over time favourites lose money to their starting price, and so does every mechanical staking plan built on top of them.

Course form counts for a lot

The single most useful pointer at Sligo is previous course form. The circuit is tight, undulating and almost constantly on the turn, with an uphill run-in of just under two furlongs, and it produces genuine course specialists. A horse that has handled Cleveragh before, particularly over the same code and trip, is worth more than its bare rating might suggest. The flip side is worth knowing too: the track's demands are such that, by one guide's reckoning, no jumps horse has won more than three times at Sligo since 1988, so even the specialists have limits.

Prominent, speedy types on a turning track

The constant turning and the short run-in tend to suit horses that travel prominently and have the tactical speed to hold position. Runners held up at the back can find themselves short of racing room on the bends and short of ground to make it up in the straight. In heavy going, and the natural bowl can turn the ground genuinely testing after rain, stamina moves back to the front of the queue.

The draw is a soft factor

Draw evidence at Sligo is thin. What data exists for larger handicaps points to a slight advantage for low draws, consistent with the early turn, but it is a lean rather than a rule and should not carry a bet on its own.

Keep it in proportion

None of this is a system. Course form, a prominent running style and a low draw can shorten the odds against you, but they do not tip the maths in your favour, and the Connacht Oaks alone has been won at 18/1, 11/4 and 3/1 in different years. Set a budget before you go and treat it as the price of a day out. You must be 18 or over to bet. For support with gambling, visit BeGambleAware.org.

The August meeting is as much a social fixture as a sporting one, and its themed days are a big part of why it draws the crowds it does.

Ladies Day. The second day of the August meeting, a National Hunt evening card, is Ladies Day, the fashionable highlight of the Sligo season and one of the busiest days on the track's calendar. It runs a best-dressed competition (judged in recent years by Marietta Doran, with a €1,000 prize in 2024) and pulls in racegoers who come for the occasion as much as the racing. The evening timing suits holidaymakers and locals alike.

Students Day. Students Day is not part of the August meeting. It is a separate autumn fixture, typically around late September or early October (30 September in 2026), and it has a reputation as one of the liveliest days Sligo stages, popular with students from the local university. Grouping it with the August meeting is a common mistake worth avoiding: the two are weeks apart.

Where the meeting sits in the season. Sligo's programme runs from May to October, around eight or nine fixtures depending on how you count, and the bulk of them are summer evening meetings. The August two-day meeting is the centrepiece, and its place in the wider calendar is set by what comes before it: it follows straight on from the Galway Festival, which primes the summer racing crowd and sends trainers and racegoers north for the next occasion. Around these there are lighter themed days through the year, including a July Family Day and, later, a Vintage Day.

None of this changes the honest picture on the racing itself. The August meeting is Sligo's flagship because of its size, its setting and its atmosphere, not because it carries a graded prize; it does not. For the full year-round fixture list and the other themed days, see The Festivals in the complete guide.

When it runs. The two-day August meeting falls in early August, on Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 August in 2026. The opening day, Diageo Day, is a Flat card carrying the Connacht Oaks; the second day is a National Hunt evening card and Ladies Day. Published headline-race off-times for 2026 were not confirmed at the time of writing, so check the racecard nearer the day. Gates typically open two hours before the first race.

On television. Sligo's racing is broadcast on Racing TV, under the Racecourse Media Group arrangement that covers the Irish tracks. Replays and results are also available through Racing Post, Sporting Life and At The Races / Sky Sports Racing.

Going in person. Admission at Sligo is simple, a single-enclosure model rather than tiered rings. Indicative recent prices, which are not confirmed as official 2026 figures and should be checked with the course, run to around €15 for an adult, about €10 for over-65s and students, and roughly €20 on Ladies Day, with a family ticket for two adults and two children around €25. Tickets cost the same at the turnstiles or online. For a bit more comfort there are three grandstand suites (Cleveragh, Benbulben and Ballinode) and a small-group restaurant package at around €40 a head.

Getting there. The course is at Cleveragh, about three-quarters of a mile south of Sligo town, off the N4 via Pearse Road. The nearest rail station is Sligo Mac Diarmada, served from Dublin Connolly, with a Bus Éireann stop next to the course and Ireland West Airport Knock the nearest airport. Parking on the infield and in nearby streets is generally free.

Whatever you back on the day, the racing is only part of it. The setting under Benbulben, and Ladies Day in particular, make the August meeting a day out that stands on its own regardless of how your selections run. The full visitor detail sits in the Sligo complete guide.