Listowel
Flat
The Island, Listowel, County Kerry · seven September days in a bend of the River Feale
Turf
Left-Handed
Sharp
Festival Racing
Listowel also stages National Hunt racing. Read the National Hunt racecourse guide →
What is Listowel racecourse like?
Track Character
Flat racing at Listowel lives inside the same two windows as everything else here: the short June Whit meeting and the seven-day September Harvest Festival, Ireland’s second-best-attended race week after Galway. There is no black type on the Flat side — the September cards are built on competitive, valuable handicaps in front of five-figure crowds, with Ladies Day (27,232 in 2022) the week’s biggest single date.
The track is a sharp, left-handed island circuit in a bend of the River Feale — two circuit options of roughly a mile and a mile and a quarter, a chute serving the 7f and 1m starts, and 6f races beginning just before a long turn. It suits a speedy, handy sort; the emphasis is never stamina. The wildcard is under your feet: the black, holding island soil transforms the place when it rains, and it is the single most important variable in any Listowel Flat bet.
— Mick Kinane, former champion Irish Flat jockey — At The Races
Kinane’s two-state model is the whole course in four sentences: soft ground makes the sharp track kinder, deletes the draw and promotes stamina; quicker ground restores pace and — in his reading — a low-draw edge. One respectful caveat from the numbers: the specialist draw data finds no standout stall bias at Listowel even on the quicker side, so treat his “low is a help” as a rider’s marginal preference rather than a structural rule. His “it isn’t like anywhere else” about the heavy ground, though, is beyond dispute.
Course Facts
- Circuits Two — inner ~1m, outer ~1m1f–1m2f; sources disagree on exact lengths and even the shapes
- Starts A chute serves the 7f and 1m trips; 6f races start just before a long turn on the back straight
- Character Sharp and tight — “suits a speedy sort of horse”; stamina is rarely the test
- The ground Black, holding river-island soil — the course’s defining variable when rain arrives
- Season June Whit meeting + the seven-day September Harvest Festival; nothing else all year
Pace & the Market
- Front-runners 18.21% winners on the Flat since 2009 — +114.78 level stakes (course study)
- Held up 3.47% — described as one of the worst hold-up records at any Irish course
- Handicaps Front/prominent runners: 13.45% strike rate, +117.45 level stakes
- Translation The single most reliable angle at the meeting is who goes forward
The Festival on the Flat
- No black type The Flat programme is valuable handicaps and maidens — prestige lives on the jumps side
- Crowds Second only to Galway: Ladies Day 27,232 and Kerry National day 25,700 in 2022
- Riders Wayne Lordan (24%) and Gary Carroll (12 winners) lead the five-season festival jockey lists
- History Racing at Listowel since 1858; the island course took the meeting over from Ballyeigh Strand’s wilder era
Do front-runners win at Listowel?
Listowel is flat and sharp-ish, and its racing is concentrated into festival weeks, which means big fields and competitive handicaps rather than a quiet summer card. The pace read is clear: horses racing at or near the front win several times more often than those held up.
That gap is wide enough to be the first filter on any race here. What is not established is whether field size changes it — the festival cards are large, and no reliable breakdown separates big fields from small ones, so we would not lean on a field-size rule either way.
Run Style Bias — Qualitative Only
Several times the hold-up rate
The dependable profile
Behind the pace-setters
A small fraction of the winners
Treat these bars as directional — a reading of how the track rides rather than a statistical measurement. Whether field size moves this is unconfirmed — the festival cards are big, but no breakdown separating large from small fields is published.
Does the draw matter at Listowel?
Strong bias — material handicapping factor
Moderate lean — worth noting
Broadly fair — not a primary factor
Listowel is a case study in reputation versus measurement. The reputational claim — repeated across general course guides — is that a low draw is “a great advantage” over six furlongs because of the quickly-arriving bend. The specialist site that actually counted found the opposite: no draw bias at six furlongs, “absolutely no draw bias” at seven, and at a mile “not much of a bias although low maybe slightly favoured.” Its overall verdict: you can win from any stall at Listowel regardless of going, distance or field size. Kinane’s rider view sits between the camps — low is “a help” on quicker ground, irrelevant on soft — which is best read as a marginal preference, not an edge worth paying for. The bettable structure here is pace, and it is dramatic.
The handicap-only draw page finds no standout bias at any trip, offering qualitative verdicts rather than published figures, against the conflicting low-draw reputation carried by general course guides, and Mick Kinane’s going-dependent rider view via At The Races. The quantified pace study (front-runners 18.21%, held-up 3.47% since 2009) is where Listowel’s real structure lives. A first-party stalls pull does sit behind this section: HRB data for Listowel handicaps of eight or more runners since 2010, with the draw cut into thirds within each field size so every stall is judged against the number of chances it actually gets, and, where the sample allows, cross-checked against the value returned by each quarter of the draw.
Which trainers and jockeys win most at Listowel?
| Trainer | Runs | Wins | Win% | Places | Place% | A/E | P/L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 O’Brien, A P | 138 | 33 | 23.91% | 65 | 47.10% | 0.91 | -36.79 |
| 2 Weld, D K | 160 | 31 | 19.38% | 68 | 42.50% | 0.96 | -37.71 |
| 3 O’Brien, Joseph Patrick | 142 | 23 | 16.20% | 52 | 36.62% | 0.89 | -34.16 |
| 4 Bolger, J S | 150 | 19 | 12.67% | 49 | 32.67% | 0.90 | -27.50 |
| 5 Harrington, Mrs John | 159 | 18 | 11.32% | 48 | 30.19% | 0.79 | +27.86 |
| 6 Murphy, Joseph G | 84 | 13 | 15.48% | 27 | 32.14% | 1.25 | +29.00 |
| 7 McCreery, W | 100 | 12 | 12.00% | 37 | 37.00% | 0.94 | -24.02 |
| 8 McGuinness, Adrian | 98 | 10 | 10.20% | 26 | 26.53% | 0.91 | +87.50 |
| 9 Mullins, W P | 53 | 10 | 18.87% | 26 | 49.06% | 0.67 | -21.72 |
| 10 Halford, M | 65 | 9 | 13.85% | 18 | 27.69% | 1.03 | -23.00 |
| 11 Marnane, David | 56 | 8 | 14.29% | 19 | 33.93% | 1.28 | +17.25 |
| 12 Cromwell, Gavin Patrick | 60 | 7 | 11.67% | 19 | 31.67% | 1.11 | +5.33 |
| 13 Hogan, Denis Gerard | 82 | 6 | 7.32% | 24 | 29.27% | 0.64 | -36.00 |
| 14 Mulvany, Michael | 62 | 6 | 9.68% | 23 | 37.10% | 0.95 | -21.12 |
| 15 Martin, A J | 50 | 6 | 12.00% | 16 | 32.00% | 1.00 | -14.00 |
| 16 Bromhead, Henry De | 24 | 5 | 20.83% | 8 | 33.33% | 1.64 | -0.62 |
| 17 Twomey, P | 18 | 5 | 27.78% | 10 | 55.56% | 0.89 | -0.86 |
| 18 Slattery, Andrew | 91 | 4 | 4.40% | 24 | 26.37% | 0.53 | -49.50 |
| 19 Murtagh, J P | 64 | 4 | 6.25% | 16 | 25.00% | 0.44 | -39.37 |
Listowel Flat · Current trainers, since 2010
| Jockey | Runs | Wins | Win% | Places | Place% | A/E | P/L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Lordan, W M | 183 | 24 | 13.11% | 62 | 33.88% | 1.03 | -22.69 |
| 2 Carroll, G F | 173 | 24 | 13.87% | 53 | 30.64% | 1.27 | +26.34 |
| 3 Hayes, C D | 256 | 23 | 8.98% | 64 | 25.00% | 0.77 | -93.27 |
| 4 Foley, Shane | 228 | 21 | 9.21% | 69 | 30.26% | 0.73 | -91.75 |
| 5 Lee, W J | 196 | 21 | 10.71% | 57 | 29.08% | 0.79 | -84.18 |
| 6 McDonogh, D P | 159 | 15 | 9.43% | 48 | 30.19% | 0.76 | -58.00 |
| 7 Whelan, R P | 171 | 13 | 7.60% | 33 | 19.30% | 0.75 | +15.50 |
| 8 Roche, L F | 99 | 11 | 11.11% | 28 | 28.28% | 1.31 | -10.87 |
| 9 Keane, C T | 148 | 9 | 6.08% | 55 | 37.16% | 0.41 | -67.25 |
| 10 Heffernan, J A | 129 | 9 | 6.98% | 31 | 24.03% | 0.60 | -94.76 |
| 11 Ryan, Gavin | 69 | 9 | 13.04% | 19 | 27.54% | 1.09 | -6.12 |
| 12 McMonagle, Dylan B | 62 | 8 | 12.90% | 21 | 33.87% | 0.69 | -36.16 |
| 13 Cleary, R P | 128 | 7 | 5.47% | 23 | 17.97% | 0.71 | -4.00 |
| 14 Curtis, B A | 44 | 7 | 15.91% | 12 | 27.27% | 2.01 | +45.00 |
| 15 McAteer, L T | 31 | 6 | 19.35% | 10 | 32.26% | 1.71 | +0.50 |
| 16 Coen, Ben M | 72 | 5 | 6.94% | 14 | 19.44% | 0.68 | -37.37 |
| 17 Orr, Oisin | 27 | 5 | 18.52% | 7 | 25.93% | 1.68 | +19.50 |
| 18 Mullins, Mr P W | 11 | 5 | 45.45% | 8 | 72.73% | 0.95 | -2.30 |
| 19 Slattery, A J | 84 | 4 | 4.76% | 19 | 22.62% | 0.58 | -47.50 |
| 20 McCullagh, N G | 58 | 4 | 6.90% | 8 | 13.79% | 0.87 | -31.75 |
Listowel Flat · Current riders, since 2010
Which sires do best at Listowel?
A/E above 1.0 indicates market underestimation.
| Sire | Runs | Wins | Win% | Places | Place% | A/E | P/L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Galileo (IRE) | 93 | 17 | 18.28% | 45 | 48.39% | 0.85 | -24.97 |
| 2 Rock Of Gibraltar (IRE) | 51 | 8 | 15.69% | 14 | 27.45% | 1.43 | -0.62 |
| 3 No Nay Never (USA) | 26 | 8 | 30.77% | 11 | 42.31% | 1.49 | +13.63 |
| 4 Holy Roman Emperor (IRE) | 72 | 7 | 9.72% | 20 | 27.78% | 0.83 | -31.80 |
| 5 Lawman (FR) | 51 | 7 | 13.73% | 16 | 31.37% | 1.06 | +18.50 |
| 6 Dark Angel (IRE) | 50 | 7 | 14.00% | 17 | 34.00% | 1.29 | -6.62 |
| 7 Captain Rio | 41 | 7 | 17.07% | 11 | 26.83% | 1.69 | +47.33 |
| 8 Dragon Pulse (IRE) | 34 | 7 | 20.59% | 14 | 41.18% | 1.79 | +12.08 |
| 9 Invincible Spirit (IRE) | 68 | 6 | 8.82% | 15 | 22.06% | 0.72 | +68.21 |
| 10 Kodiac | 60 | 6 | 10.00% | 16 | 26.67% | 0.97 | +23.26 |
| 11 Acclamation | 58 | 6 | 10.34% | 18 | 31.03% | 0.78 | -25.92 |
| 12 Fast Company (IRE) | 55 | 5 | 9.09% | 18 | 32.73% | 0.72 | -29.75 |
| 13 Lope De Vega (IRE) | 42 | 5 | 11.90% | 16 | 38.10% | 0.88 | -6.50 |
| 14 Zebedee | 42 | 5 | 11.90% | 14 | 33.33% | 1.04 | -11.17 |
| 15 Fastnet Rock (AUS) | 37 | 5 | 13.51% | 9 | 24.32% | 1.08 | -19.00 |
| 16 Sea The Stars (IRE) | 23 | 5 | 21.74% | 8 | 34.78% | 1.31 | -2.50 |
| 17 Whipper (USA) | 15 | 5 | 33.33% | 8 | 53.33% | 3.31 | +37.00 |
| 18 Jeremy (USA) | 41 | 4 | 9.76% | 12 | 29.27% | 0.82 | -27.02 |
| 19 Teofilo (IRE) | 36 | 4 | 11.11% | 17 | 47.22% | 0.86 | -3.10 |
| 20 Camelot | 29 | 4 | 13.79% | 8 | 27.59% | 0.99 | +1.75 |
Listowel Flat · Since 2010
Betting Tips for Listowel Flat Turf
The pace stat is the whole track
Front-runners: 18.21% and +114.78 level stakes since 2009. Held-up: 3.47% — one of the worst waiting records in Ireland. In the big-field festival handicaps the front/prominent pair still returns +117.45. Sort every Listowel Flat race by early speed before anything else.
Bet the going, not the folklore
Kinane’s two-state model: soft ground kills the draw and demands proven stamina; quicker ground restores pace as king. But don’t assume the bog — the 2025 festival’s biggest day ran on yielding. The day’s going report is worth more than every reputation this course carries.
Heavy at Listowel is a different sport
“The ground gets very heavy indeed at Listowel, it isn’t like anywhere else, and it takes an awful lot of getting.” When the Feale island soil turns, tear up quick-ground form entirely — proven heavy-ground stamina beats class, and bad runs in it are freely forgivable next time.
Don’t pay for a stall number
The measured verdict is no standout draw bias at any trip — against a persistent low-draw reputation at 6f. If a price moves on draw talk at Listowel, that’s value leaking toward the pace angle the market undersells.
Lordan and Carroll are the festival Flat names
Wayne Lordan (24% over five festival seasons) and Gary Carroll (12 winners, the volume leader) head the Flat-riding lists at the meeting. Neither carries a published profit figure, so treat them as strike-rate leads — and remember the week’s depth suits yards that target it deliberately.
Two windows means targeted horses
With all Listowel racing packed into June and September, nothing turns up here by accident — connections chose this meeting months out. Stable intent (multiple entries, a booked festival rider, a June prep for September) reads louder here than at year-round tracks.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Backing the “low draw at 6f” reputation. The source that measured it found no draw bias at six or seven furlongs — the tight-bend logic sounds right and counts wrong.
- Assuming September rides heavy. The island soil’s reputation is earned, but the 2025 festival’s feature day went on yielding — check the report, don’t bet the folklore.
- Reading festival form as ordinary form. Seven days on one sharp island track with black soil produces results that transfer poorly — forgive Listowel flops elsewhere, and respect Listowel winners returning here.
- Reading Listowel’s Flat handicaps as pattern form. The programme is handicap-first — no Listed or Group race runs on the Flat here, and Harvest week’s prestige is all over jumps — so don’t inflate a course win into black-type class.
Listowel (Flat) Racecourse FAQs
Is there a draw bias at Listowel?
What kind of track is Listowel on the Flat?
When does Listowel race on the Flat?
What are the big Flat races at Listowel?
Where is Listowel racecourse?
Nearby Tracks
Want the thinking behind Listowel bets?
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