THE Listowel Festival concludes this weekend after a stop-start week caused by poor weather.

Waterlogged this time last week, the track only narrowly survived a series of inspections last weekend before getting underway on Sunday afternoon. Further rain that night put paid to Monday’s fixture and Tuesday’s card was also quickly scrapped.

Racing resumed on Wednesday when a crowd of 25,000 (down from 27,000) attended the Kerry National card.

There were no further interruptions and the course gained an additional fixture tomorrow (Sunday) to compensate for the earlier cancellations.

Racing on Sunday starts at 12.15pm and ends at 3.15pm to avoid a clash with the Kerry-Dublin All-Ireland Football Final which kicks off at 4pm.

Additional flat meetings have also been scheduled for Navan on Monday and Naas on Wednesday.

PREMIER STATUS

Horse Racing Ireland is pushing racecourses to raise more external race sponsorship if they want their fixtures to retain ‘premier’ status.

Starting next year racecourses will have to guarantee minimum race sponsorship contributions of €3,500 per meeting if they want their weekend, bank holiday or summer fixtures to be classified as premier.

If not, the fixture may be moved from its valuable slot to a less desirable date or time. Country tracks staging evening meetings are among those most likely to be affected.

In 2014 HRI put €31 million into prizemoney while sponsorship contributions through racecourses amounted to €4 million.

The remaining €12 million was contributed by owners through entry fees.

The 2016 fixture list is due to be published next Tuesday.