Horse racing in Ireland to break tradition with huge first-ever meet

This makes sense.

For the first time ever, Ireland will have a race meet on Good Friday.

Horse Racing Ireland have stated that the Curragh will host a meet on April 3, 2026.

This comes after the Good Friday alcohol ban was lifted in 2018, while the UK have had meets on the day since 2014.

However, as it stands, bookies will not be open.

HRI’s Director of Racing, John Mullin, said: “The Good Friday fixture is a change of policy for Horse Racing Ireland and once the HRI Fixtures Committee reaffirmed their view at the outset of the process that this was a priority for 2026, we sought applications from racecourses and several expressed an interest.

“Ultimately the successful application came from the Curragh, which will include a number of community and industry initiatives as well as a considerable investment in extra prize money.

“Throughout the fixture process we were very conscious that a number of summer weekends, and in particular Sundays, needed a better-quality Flat offering and the fixture list for 2026 features a number of changes to reflect that aim.

“It can be seen from tweaks made to the winter National Hunt programme over the past couple of years, that consecutive Sundays of quality racing works well in terms of promotion and awareness, and returning some Flat fixtures of high quality to the Sunday roster has been brought about for 2026.

“With no increase in fixtures in 2026 this meeting had to come from an applicant track’s current allocation, and so this will effectively mean the Curragh’s Guineas weekend in May will revert to a two-day meeting.

“The fixture list for 2026 also sees some movement in fixtures at Thurles to assist with ground management there as well as concentrating those fixtures in a time of the year when Thurles is seen to its best.

“This was an option we had raised with Thurles in early summer before their announcement to step away from the business and continued to make sense after the discussions had taken place between the Molony Family, HRI and AIR to keep Thurles operational right through this season to March 2026.

“Concentrating Thurles fixtures in the period of the calendar when Thurles has excelled as a racetrack, and when National Hunt horses of all levels seek the opportunity to run, seemed a prudent move in the circumstances and we are grateful to the Molony Family and Thurles’ new clerk of the course Paul Moloney for their flexibility.”