LISTOWEL RACECOURSE
Paddock Preview: Listowel Racecourse – Harvest Festival Finale 🇮🇪🐎
Course: Listowel Racecourse - Saturday Harvest Festival
🎫 Ticket & value: €30 General Admission
👀 Track view: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🍔 Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🍺 Guinness: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⭕️ Parade Ring: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🏇 Runners and riders: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎉 Atmosphere: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⭐️ Overall Experience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
👍🏻 Best for: Atmosphere 🎉
The Listowel Harvest Festival is held every year in Listowel, County Kerry, and is one of the longest-running and best-known race meetings in Ireland. The festival traditionally takes place over seven days in mid to late September, featuring a mix of National Hunt and Flat racing.
Racing has been part of Listowel’s history since the nineteenth century, and the Harvest Festival has grown into the town’s biggest annual event, attracting owners, trainers, jockeys, and racegoers from across Ireland and further afield.
Alongside the racing, the week brings a major boost to the local economy, with the town’s hotels, pubs, and restaurants filled throughout the festival. The meeting includes several feature races, such as the Guinness Kerry National, which is run midweek and is regarded as one of the highlights of the Irish racing year.
There are few places in racing that capture the heart and soul of a community quite like Listowel, and the final day of the Harvest Festival proved exactly why it’s one of Ireland’s most cherished meetings. From the moment you stroll through the town — pint glasses clinking, laughter spilling from pub doorways — to the moment the last song fades under the Kerry night sky, Listowel delivers racing’s true magic: passion, people, and pure atmosphere.
Listowel’s left-handed circuit sits perfectly within sight from the grandstand, a flat track offering a panoramic view of every fence and hurdle. Whether you’re perched high above or pressed against the rail, you feel part of the action — especially as the horses thunder past just yards away. It’s one of those rare courses where you can genuinely see and feel every stride, something we loved at Listowel.
Rustic and compact, the parade ring oozes character. Seating wraps around a small, tidy enclosure with a touch of old-school charm, and the short chute leading directly onto the track gives racegoers an up-close look at the horses as they head out. Perfectly positioned beside the Owners & Trainers area, it’s the ideal spot for soaking up the pre-race buzz and catching the post-race debriefs.
At €7 a pint, the Guinness is priced extremely well for a big race meet given this equates to just over 6 quid we absolutely have no complaints here and bar Ayr this is the cheapest we’ve had on course. More importantly it more than delivers where it counts. While the head was a touch light, the temperature, texture, and taste were spot on — creamy, smooth, and as satisfying as you’d hope for at an Irish festival. A fine pint, well worthy of its surroundings.
Over in the canteen, hearty Irish cooking was the order of the day. For €18 per meal, the portions were generous and the flavours homely and full. The chicken curry with chips and rice packed a lovely punch, while the burger with peppercorn sauce, mash, chips, and veg was classic comfort food done right. Other options like gammon and salmon kept things varied, all served piping hot and full of flavour — proper festival fare for hungry racegoers. Alternatively if you fancied something from one of the two burgers vans on site you could go for that as well. We do however love the restaurant / canteen option which we have seen mainly in Ireland but also at Newmarket Rowley Mile.
While there were no Grade 1s on the card, the racing was fiercely competitive, with stacked handicaps and plenty of familiar names. Jack Kennedy kicked things off with a quickfire double, while Donagh Meyler impressed aboard an Emmett Mullins winner. The roll call of Irish talent — Paul Townend, Danny Mullins, Keith Donoghue, Sam Ewing — ensured the quality stayed high right to the end.
If racing is the heartbeat of Listowel, the people are its soul. The crowd was electric — proud locals, loyal racing fans, and visitors all blending into one big celebration. All the stands were completely packed for every race with the crowd cheering loudly. The sense of community was palpable, from the cheers at the final fence to the music that carried on until after 9pm, a full three hours after the last race. With locals dancing, singing, and chatting trackside as the sun set, it was impossible not to get swept up in the spirit of it all. There was a live band plus DJs all on course after racing. If you then want to carry the party on then be sure not to miss a trip into the Listowel Arms which has a variety of bars, live music and even a full blown club housed inside a lovely hotel which is open until the early hours of the morning. They certainly know how to do it in Listowel!
Listowel’s Harvest Festival finale wasn’t just a day at the races — it was a snapshot of what makes Irish racing so special. A stunning track view, warm-hearted people, and an atmosphere that lingers long after the final horse has passed the post. Rustic, raw, and real — Listowel delivers racing at its most authentic, and we’ll be counting down the days until we’re back in the heart of Kerry once again.
