Located in County Kerry, Listowel is one of the few truly "old school" tracks still in operation in Ireland. The course holds nine race meetings every year.
The first of those is a two-day meeting in June and then there is the famous seven-day Listowel Harvest Festival in September. Racing has been ongoing at Listowel since 1858 and the feature race each year is the Kerry National, a hugely valuable staying chase. It is a dual-purpose course, hosting both Flat and jumps.
Listowel is a left-handed, sharp track and has a circuit of roughly one mile and a furlong, with a run-in of about two furlongs. It's a course that suits a speedy type and it can be difficult to come from the rear to win. Soft ground makes for more of a level playing field, but when the ground is quick, you need to be on the front end. The ground can cut up quite badly at times.
There isn?t much of a draw bias at Listowel over 6f and 7f, although low numbers are slightly favoured over the mile. What is more important is pace and track position.
The jumps course at Listowel is a very sharp, flat, left-handed oval circuit of roughly a mile and a quarter. Again, it will be an advantage to be a front-running type and even over staying trips, the course doesn't take a lot of getting. There are five fences on each loop of the chase track, with two up the home straight, which is roughly 200 yards.
