Kildare festival
Punchestown Festival: Racecourse Guide, Days and Tips
Five days of jumps racing near Naas in late April or early May: the course, the banks, the feature races that can be pinned to a day, and what a late withdrawal does to a return.
By Conor FurlongChecked 18+
18+ only. Gambling can become a problem. Set a limit before you start. Help and support
Punchestown is the racecourse near Naas in Co. Kildare that stages a five-day jumps festival, Tuesday to Saturday, in late April or early May. Our selections for the meeting appear race by race in the feed below; what follows explains the track, the days and the sums worth knowing before betting there.
Punchestown races today
| Course | First race | Code | Going | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Punchestown | 13:05 | Flat | Fixture moved from Galway after the Tuesday Galway Flat meeting was cancelled for waterlogging; official going not found |
The panel fills when Punchestown is racing: the card, the times of the first and last race, and our view of each contest. Punchestown racing tomorrow shows up once the declarations are in. On a day without a fixture, it stays blank, which is the honest answer.
Punchestown racecourse: right-handed and undulating
The track runs right-handed over undulating ground, with separate courses for hurdles (about 1m 6f round) and fences (about 2m round). It also has the only cross-country banks course in Ireland, which gives it races found nowhere else on the calendar.
Undulations reward a horse that keeps its rhythm up and down hill. A runner that has only shown its form on flat, sharp tracks is taking on a different question here, and that belongs in any assessment of its chance.
The five-day Punchestown Festival
In 2026 the festival ran from Tuesday 28 April to Saturday 2 May. The official festival summary for that year put the Champion Chase on day one, the Punchestown Gold Cup on day two and the Champion Hurdle on day four. Sources disagree on the headline races for days three and five, so we leave them unlisted rather than guess; the card in the feed settles it each year.
The meeting is often described as Ireland's answer to Cheltenham, and the comparison holds in one practical way. Many of the horses that ran at Cheltenham in March reappear here, so the festival is where the spring form gets a second reading.
The banks course
Cross-country races over the banks are a test of a particular kind of jumper, one that is clever over unusual obstacles rather than simply fast. Form over regulation fences says little about how a horse will cope with banks. Past runs over this course, or over the cross-country course at Cheltenham, are the only real guide.
Cheltenham form at Punchestown
Reading a Cheltenham run into a Punchestown race takes some care. The first questions: how hard was the race in March, how long ago was it, and is the ground here the same? A horse beaten a long way after a punishing run may come back fresher; a winner may have had its season's best day already. None of that shows on a price, which is why the form deserves a slower read than the headline result.
Late in the season, horses also come out of races. That brings Rule 4 into play.
Rule 4: a worked example
When a horse is withdrawn after the betting has formed and there is no time for a new market, winning bets on the others are cut. The deduction comes off the winnings, not the stake, and its size follows the withdrawn horse's price: the shorter it was, the bigger the cut, up to 90 cents in the euro. A withdrawn horse priced bigger than 14/1 triggers no deduction.
Example: EUR 20 at 4/1 on the winner, after a 2/1 shot was taken out. A 2/1 withdrawal sits in the 9/5 to 9/4 band, which is a 30 cent deduction per euro of winnings. The EUR 80 profit becomes EUR 56, so EUR 76 comes back instead of EUR 100. Ante-post bets are exempt, and stakes on the withdrawn horse are refunded. More on the arithmetic of odds is in our fractional odds guide.
Betting exchanges at the festival
Some punters prefer to lay a fancied horse, or back at a price set by other customers, on an exchange rather than a bookmaker. Betfair Exchange runs under its own GRAI remote betting intermediary licence. The exchange earns its money from commission, and it pays 25% of the commission charged to Irish customers to Revenue as betting duty. The mechanics are on our exchanges page.
Bookmakers for Punchestown
Every firm on this card appears on the GRAI register with a remote betting licence and has a racing product. That licence has been required for online bookmakers taking Irish bets since 1 July 2026, and it covers betting, not casino games. See who is licensed in Ireland for the register in full.
| No. | Runner | Form | Licence | Verdict | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  BetfairPPB Counterparty Services Limited | 1-1-4-4-4 | GRAI licence (betting) | NAP | Visit |
| 2 |  bet365Hillside (Europe) ENC | 1-1-2-2-3 | GRAI licence (betting) | NAP | Visit |
| 3 |  Paddy PowerPPB Counterparty Services Limited | 1-1-2-2-3 | GRAI licence (betting) | NAP | Visit |
| 4 |  BoyleSportsBoylesports (Gibraltar) Limited | 1-2-1-2-3 | GRAI licence (betting) | Each-way | Visit |
| 5 |  LivescorebetLiveScore Betting and Gaming (Gibraltar) Limited | 1-2-3-4-4 | GRAI licence (betting) | Each-way | Visit |
Form reads licence, markets, payments, safer-play tools, terms; 1 is best. How we rate. 18+ only.
Five days of jumps racing make a long week. Betting is 18+ only. Settle on a figure you can lose before Tuesday, and if the festival runs away with it, the limits and breaks on our responsible gambling page are there to use.
Readers' questions
- Where is Punchestown racecourse?
- Near Naas in Co. Kildare. The course is right-handed and undulating, with separate hurdles and chase tracks and Ireland's only cross-country banks course.
- How long is the Punchestown Festival?
- Five days, Tuesday to Saturday, in late April or early May. In 2026 it ran from 28 April to 2 May.
- Does Rule 4 apply to my Punchestown bet?
- Only if a runner is withdrawn late and no new market is formed, and only on bets struck at a price. Ante-post bets are exempt.
- When is the first race at Punchestown today?
- Race times are set for each fixture and appear in the feed on this page on racing days. We do not reprint them from previous years, as they change.
- Is there racing at Punchestown outside the festival?
- Yes, the course races at other times of the year too. The feed on this page shows any fixture there on the day.