The History of Tramore Racecourse

Tramore's racing began on the sand. The first races were run on the beach and strand in 1785, and the meeting caught on quickly with both residents and the holidaymakers who came to the seaside town. By 1807 it had grown into a full August festival, at that stage a six-day affair, and the modern August meeting still traces its roots to that early-1800s fixture.

The railway and the reclaimed course

What turned Tramore from a local beach meeting into a properly attended event was the railway. The line from Waterford opened in 1853 and made the course far easier to reach from the city, and crowds grew accordingly. In 1880 a new racecourse was laid out on reclaimed land with added facilities, a sign that the sport had outgrown its improvised beginnings on the open strand.

Racing by the sea always carried a risk, though, and it eventually caught up with Tramore. In 1911 severe storms flooded and damaged the beach course and its buildings beyond repair. The old site could not be saved, and the meeting needed somewhere new to go.

The move to Graun Hill

The answer came from Martin J. Murphy, who provided his own land at Graun Hill, on higher ground a little further back from the sea. The racecourse moved there, and racing has taken place at the present site since 1912. It has never moved again.

The choice of ground shaped everything that followed. Graun Hill sits above the town with panoramic views over Tramore Strand and the wider Waterford coastline, and the slope of the hill gave the course its defining character. The track climbs from the winning post to about halfway down the back straight, drops sharply, then rises again into a short uphill home straight of only about a furlong. The result is one of the tightest and trickiest circuits in Ireland, a right-handed, undulating, roughly round track of about seven to seven-and-a-half furlongs, with a run-in over fences of around 160 yards.

That layout is the reason Tramore has always produced course specialists. The sharp turns, the undulations and the very short straight suit nimble, well-balanced horses and catch out the bigger, galloping types, and plenty of runners simply never act around it. No starting stalls are used on the Flat, so races start from a flag; there is no draw and no draw bias, though horses unused to a flag start can struggle. It is a proper test of a horse and of a jockey, and it has stayed physically much the same since Murphy first handed over the land.

For the full picture of how the modern track rides, see the complete guide to Tramore Racecourse.

Tramore stages no Pattern races and only one Graded race, and it is the fixture the course is built around. The New Year's Day Chase, run over about 2m7f on 1 January for horses aged five and older, has grown from a Listed handicap into the venue's flagship, and its rise is the clearest milestone in the modern history of the course.

From Listed race to Grade 3

The race has run under a string of sponsor names. It began as the Wilf Dooly Chase, then became the Holden Plant Rentals Chase, both while it held Listed status. During the Savills-sponsored era it was the Savills New Year's Day Chase, and it was in that period, in 2020, that the race was upgraded from Listed to Grade 3. From 2025 it has carried the title of the O'Driscoll's Irish Whiskey New Year's Day Chase.

The distance has drifted over time. Older previews describe it at 2m5f or 2m6f, and it was genuinely run at those shorter trips under its earlier names; the current official listings give it as 2m7f (2m 6f 170y). Prize money has fluctuated rather than climbed steadily, from €26,040 in 2007 down to €19,500 in 2013 and €22,125 for the 2026 running.

For 2026 the sponsor added a sharper edge, offering a €50,000 bonus to the winning connections if they went on to win any race at that year's Cheltenham Festival, a nod to the race's growing reputation as a Gold Cup trail.

The roll of honour

The recent record of the race is dominated by a single stable, but it has still thrown up its share of good horses and notable days. The table below lists the confirmed winners of the last two decades.

Year	Winner	Jockey	SP	Trainer
2026	Heart Wood	Darragh O'Keeffe	2/1 jt-fav	Henry de Bromhead
2025	Embassy Gardens	Michael O'Sullivan	9/1	W P Mullins
2024	Jungle Boogie	Darragh O'Keeffe	n/a	Henry de Bromhead
2023	Minella Indo	Rachael Blackmore	7/4	Henry de Bromhead
2022	Al Boum Photo	Paul Townend	1/6 fav	W P Mullins
2021	Al Boum Photo	Paul Townend	2/9 fav	W P Mullins
2020	Al Boum Photo	Paul Townend	4/7 fav	W P Mullins
2019	Al Boum Photo	Ruby Walsh	2/1 fav	W P Mullins
2018	Bachasson	Paul Townend	1/1 fav	W P Mullins
2017	Champagne West	D J Mullins	2/1	Henry de Bromhead
2016	Abandoned	n/a	n/a	n/a
2015	Roi Du Mee	K C Sexton	5/1	Gordon Elliott
2014	Marito	Paul Townend	13/8 jt-fav	W P Mullins
2013	Roi Du Mee	Davy Russell	1/1 fav	Gordon Elliott
2012	Apt Approach	D J Casey	5/1	W P Mullins
2011	Barker	D J Casey	5/1	W P Mullins
2010	The Fonze	J R Barry	12/1	Eoin Doyle
2009	One Cool Cookie	Davy Russell	7/4 fav	C F Swan
2008	Knight Legend	Barry Geraghty	2/1	Jessica Harrington
2007	Cloudy Bays	Davy Russell	5/1	C Byrnes
2006	Kymandjen	J L Cullen	4/1	Paul Nolan

The 2005 running was won by Cloudy Bays, though the jockey for that renewal is not confirmed, and winners before 2005 are not recorded here.

Two runnings stand out. In 2008, Jessica Harrington's Knight Legend won the then Wilf Dooly Chase when Willie Mullins' odds-on Our Ben suffered a fatal fall at the second-last while in contention. Harrington said afterwards that she did not like winning races that way. And in 2019, Al Boum Photo took the race on his way to giving Mullins a first Cheltenham Gold Cup two months later, which is when the New Year's Day Chase started to be treated as a genuine Gold Cup springboard.

Tramore is honest about what it is. It is not a course defined by a single champion, the way some tracks are built around one great horse. Its story is one of great days and course specialists, of horses that learned to handle a track many others could not. That said, two names belong in any account of the place.

Al Boum Photo

The closest thing Tramore has to a resident champion is Al Boum Photo. Trained by Willie Mullins, he won the New Year's Day Chase four years running, from 2019 to 2022, a record for the race. He made the seaside track his traditional seasonal reappearance, and he did it while being one of the best staying chasers in training, a dual Cheltenham Gold Cup winner who used the 1 January outing as his springboard.

His fourth win, in 2022 under Paul Townend at 1/6, came in front of a devoted local crowd, and the connection ran deep enough that the racecourse revealed plans to name a bar after Mullins in recognition of the horse's popularity at the track. No other horse has dominated a Tramore race the way Al Boum Photo dominated this one.

No Problem and the first race of the year 2000

The other horse woven into Tramore's story is No Problem, and his moment had nothing to do with class and everything to do with timing. On 1 January 2000, Tramore staged the first Irish race meeting of the year, and No Problem won the first race on the card, the Mean Fiddler Handicap Chase over 2m6f. He went off the 5/1 favourite and won comfortably by three lengths, ridden by J R Barry for trainer Gerard Cully and owner T Cronin.

The meeting has passed into folklore as the first race of the new Millennium, sometimes framed as the first sporting event in Europe, or the world, that day, before a reported record crowd of around 11,000. Those claims are worth handling with care. Strictly, the third millennium began on 1 January 2001, so this was the first race of the year 2000 rather than of the millennium proper, and the 11,000 figure rests on secondary racing-heritage sources rather than a primary attendance record. What is firmly documented is the race result itself, and No Problem's name has stuck to the day ever since.

Course winners, not household names

Beyond those two, Tramore's honour roll is made up of good horses catching the eye on a track that rewards the right type. Minella Indo, a former Gold Cup winner, took the 2023 New Year's Day Chase for Henry de Bromhead. Roi Du Mee won it twice, in 2013 and 2015, for Gordon Elliott. The pattern that runs through it all is not a single legend but a track that keeps producing specialists, horses balanced and nimble enough to master the hill, the turns and the short straight when bigger names cannot.

If Tramore's history is about specialists, that applies to the people as much as the horses. A handful of trainers and jockeys have learned the track and gone back to it season after season.

Willie Mullins

No one has mastered Tramore like Willie Mullins. Ireland's champion jumps trainer is comfortably the most successful trainer at the course in the modern era, with around 63 National Hunt wins since 2009 at a strike rate of roughly 38 per cent. Across the seasons from 2015-16 to 2019-20 he saddled 38 winners from 99 runners at the track. His grip on the New Year's Day Chase is tighter still: nine wins, including Barker, Apt Approach, Marito, Bachasson, Al Boum Photo's four in a row and Embassy Gardens in 2025. It is the single clearest thread running through the recent history of the place.

Paul Townend and the riders

Paul Townend, Mullins' stable jockey, is the leading rider in the New Year's Day Chase with five wins, taking Marito, Bachasson and Al Boum Photo from 2020 to 2022. Davy Russell won the feature three times, in 2007, 2009 and 2013. On the Flat, Shane Foley and Wayne Lordan are noted course-riding specialists, the kind of jockeys who repay a second look at a track where knowing the turns counts for a great deal.

Henry de Bromhead

Henry de Bromhead is the local man in the story. Based in County Waterford, he has won the New Year's Day Chase several times, including a third win in four years when Heart Wood took the 2026 running under Darragh O'Keeffe. His earlier winners included Champagne West, Minella Indo and Jungle Boogie. The family ties run deeper than results: his late father, Harry de Bromhead, was described by the racecourse as a great friend of Tramore.

Gordon Elliott and the Flat men

Gordon Elliott has won the feature twice, with Roi Du Mee in 2013 and 2015, and features strongly in the course statistics alongside Mullins and de Bromhead over jumps. On the Flat, Pat Flynn has been a leading local trainer, a reminder that the sparingly used Flat course has its own set of regulars who understand what Tramore asks of a horse.

Tramore's record book is thinner than most, and it is more honest to say so than to quote figures that cannot be stood up. No authoritative course-record or standard-time data has been published for the track. Winning times here are heavily affected by the going, which is usually on the soft side, so times vary widely from year to year in any case. The 2026 New Year's Day Chase, for instance, was run in 5m 54.20s on soft ground.

What can be stated with confidence sits around the New Year's Day Chase and the leading trainers and jockeys at the course.

Statistic	Detail
Fixtures per year	11
Only Graded race	New Year's Day Chase (Grade 3, about 2m7f)
Leading NH trainer	Willie Mullins, about 63 wins since 2009 (roughly 38% strike rate)
Most New Year's Day Chase wins, trainer	Willie Mullins, 9
Most New Year's Day Chase wins, jockey	Paul Townend, 5
Most New Year's Day Chase wins, horse	Al Boum Photo, 4 (2019 to 2022)
Record festival attendance	21,268 over four days, 2019 August Festival

A couple of figures come with caveats. The fastest recorded running of the New Year's Day Chase, Barker's 5m 20.20s in 2011, and the slowest, Jungle Boogie's 6m 24.60s in 2024, are drawn from a betting-analysis trends page rather than a primary results archive, so they are best treated as indicative. The often-quoted crowd of around 11,000 for the 1 January 2000 meeting rests on secondary sources rather than an audited attendance record.

On the betting side, one thing is worth stating plainly. The New Year's Day Chase has often gone to the favourite, roughly ten winning favourites in twenty renewals, but that is a description of the past, not a system. Backing favourites loses money to starting price over time, and no strategy of backing favourites here or anywhere should be assumed profitable.

Tramore sells itself as the place where turf meets surf, and that is the truth of it. The racecourse sits on Graun Hill above a working seaside resort, with the strand, the amusement park and Tramore Bay laid out below the stands. A day at the races here blends coastal holiday atmosphere with the sport, and the two fixtures that matter most are stitched into the town's own calendar.

The August Festival

The four-day August Festival, running Thursday to Sunday, is the biggest fixture of the Tramore year and the clearest expression of what the place is about. The first three days are evening meetings; the last is an afternoon family fixture. There is a BBQ Evening on the Friday, live music and a DJ in the parade ring after racing, and a Style Evening on the Saturday with best-dressed prizes and music in the festival marquee. It is a summer party as much as a race meeting, and the crowds reflect that. The 2019 festival drew 21,268 patrons over the four days, up from 18,034 the year before, with the Saturday alone jumping to 8,762.

New Year's Day

The other pole of the year is 1 January. As traditionally the first Irish meeting of the year, the New Year's Day fixture pulls in bumper holiday-season crowds, and the racecourse describes it as one of the most important social events of the Christmas and New Year period in the region. The Grade 3 chase gives the day its sporting spine, but the draw is as much the occasion as the racing.

A course that looks after its own

There is a homely streak to Tramore that sits well with its seaside setting. The racecourse offers free hot meals and drinks to stable staff on racedays, a small tradition that says something about the character of the place. Waterford Crystal, based in the nearby city, has historically supported racing at the venue, and the local ties run through the fixtures, the sponsors and the trainers who keep coming back. For all the talk of tight turns and course specialists, what people remember about Tramore is usually the view and the day out.

The modern Tramore took shape in the late 1990s. In 1997 a consortium bought the racecourse and invested about €5 million upgrading the facilities, the biggest single push into the venue since the move to Graun Hill. The course is owned and operated by the Waterford and Tramore Racecourse Company, and it holds eleven fixtures a year across both codes, Flat and National Hunt.

Firsts and footnotes

Two dates from the turn of the century have stuck to Tramore. On 1 January 2000 the course staged the first Irish race meeting of the year, remembered as the first race of the new Millennium, before a crowd reported at over 10,000. As covered earlier, the millennium branding and the exact crowd figure are worth taking with a pinch of salt, but the meeting itself is a documented part of the course's story, won in its opening race by No Problem. Then, on 1 January 2002, Tramore became the first racecourse to host a meeting at which euros were used for betting, a neat piece of timing for a course that trades on its New Year's Day fixture.

The course today

Tramore today runs the same tight, sharp, undulating right-handed circuit it has had since 1912, of about seven to seven-and-a-half furlongs, still without starting stalls on the Flat. The Flat course is used sparingly, chiefly for the Style Evening at the August Festival, over trips from about 1m4f to 2m; the bulk of the racing is over jumps. All Irish racing, Tramore included, has been broadcast on Racing TV since 2019.

The venue markets its 80 acres and its coastal views for weddings, conferences and corporate events as well as racing, and it continues to draw its biggest days from the August Festival and the New Year's Day meeting. The one Graded race, the New Year's Day Chase, has grown in standing since its upgrade to Grade 3 in 2020 and its adoption as a Gold Cup trail, giving a small, seaside track a genuine place on the national jumps calendar.

Some things about the course remain unrecorded in central sources, from a named current manager to published course records and a settled circuit length, which sits somewhere between seven and seven-and-a-half furlongs depending on who is measuring. For everything on visiting, tickets and travel, see the complete guide to Tramore Racecourse.