Naas Racecourse
🐎 Course: Naas
🎫 Ticket & value: €15
👀 Track view: 4/5
🍔 Food: 3/5
🍺 Guinness: 5/5
⭕️ Parade Ring: 4/5
🏇 Runners and riders: 3/5
🎉 Atmosphere: 2/5
⭐️ Overall Experience: 4/5
👍🏻 Best for: Guinness 🍺
Ballyhane Stakes Day
Ticket Price 15 Euros
If you’re looking for an affordable day at the races, at a course with fantastic facilities and great views of the track then look no further than Naas Racecourse! Only a 30 minute drive from Dublin Airport and located 5 minutes away from the beautiful Lawlors of Naas Hotel, the racecourse provides a fantastic opportunity for people in Ireland and England to attend a great raceday.
Immediately when you arrive at Naas, the staff are friendly, welcoming and helpful. Straight away you notice the money that has been invested into modernising the racecourse. The circle bar provides a view of both the parade ring and racecourse, whilst under the main stand there is an excellent hall to sit down, watch racing tv on multiple screens and check the betting at the large Paddy Power desk.
Although Naas is a fairly small racecourse, the main stands provide an excellent view of the course and you are able to watch the horses for long parts of the 5f straight. It also provides a unique view of looking down the racecourse from behind the winning post as they come up the steep hill to finish. However, when wanting to get trackside the fencing around the course is quite high and so your view is slightly obscured, as well as the betting stands being positioned in front of the winning post as well.
For a quiet raceday, the food on offer was of high quality with a bbq on the go throughout the day providing excellent burgers at a decent price that were cooked to order. Inside, the deli stall under the stand provided good sandwich and cake options with excellent pastries and homemade sausage rolls at around €4. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a huge amount of hot food options which if it was busier trackside may have been needed.
As to be expected in Ireland, the standard of the trackside Guinness was as good as it gets…especially when being served in a plastic cup. The staff were well trained at pouring the perfect pint, letting each pint rest the appropriate amount of time even when the bar was busy. Finally, the cold and crisp pint at €6.20 was excellent value for money.
The parade ring provides an excellent opportunity to get up close and personal to the jockeys, trainers and the weighing room. There’s access around the whole ring and you can see the horses and rider jock up and be lead out onto the track, as well as back into the winners enclosure after the racing. There’s also a huge screen near the parade ring where you can watch other racing from around the different tracks, whilst watching the horses parade before each race.
Although the €300,000 Ballyhane stakes was on the card, where top riders and trainers such as Ryan Moore and Aiden O’Brien were in attendance, the rest of the card was lacking in jockey and race quality. To support such a big race, there could have been more listed or group races to encourage the bigger jockeys to come over for more rides, not just in the big race. Having said that, it was great to see the likes of David Egan, Billy Loughnane and Ryan Moore riding at Naas on the card.
Unfortunately, with the summer weather in Ireland not quite arriving it put a dampener on the atmosphere of the raceday overall. For Ireland’s fifth richest race on the calendar, the crowd sizes were small, betting rings fairly empty and the general feel around the course was one of a relaxed and tame afternoon. This led to the atmosphere around the track feeling particularly quiet, and even the prospect of AP and Ryan Moore couldn’t spark a buzz around the place.
Overall, Naas is a beautiful and modern racecourse that is ideally located to access readily from the capital city. The staff were friendly, the track view was excellent and the Guinness was spectacular…and for €15 a ticket it’s superb value for money.
