THE Curragh will put on an eight-race card worth €420,000 in prize money for Ireland’s first Good Friday racemeeting on April 3rd.
Horse Racing Ireland allocated the fixture to the Curragh on an initial two-year trial basis and the Curragh gave up the Friday of their Guineas Festival in order to become the first Irish racecourse to stage a meeting on Good Friday.
The Curragh’s first meeting of the season is just three weeks away. Racecourse CEO Brian Kavanagh said: “We are greatly looking forward to our opening meeting on Sunday, March 15th and our new Good Friday meeting on April 3rd, which will be our third fixture of the season. It is not a new fixture as we have transferred the Friday meeting from Guineas weekend into this slot with the Guineas meeting reverting to a two-day fixture.
“It fits in very well with our racing schedule and we are putting on a high-quality programme with €420,000 in prize money on offer. The feature races are a €100,000 10-furlong handicap and the Group 3 Park Express Stakes. We have upped the value of the Park Express €68.5 last year to €100,000 and increased the value of all the supporting races on the day.”
Last year the Park Express attracted a strong field, including Whirl, One Look, Bright Thunder, Naomi Lapaglia and Garden Of Eden.”
Kavanagh continued: “We very much welcome the HRI initiatives on prize money for this year and plan to supplement them wherever possible with sponsorship and Curragh funds wherever to grow our prize fund.”
Racing on Good Friday at the Curragh will start at 1.20pm and race times will be co-ordinated to minimise clashes with the established meetings at Newcastle and Lingfield on that day.
The Curragh plans to promote the fixture as a family raceday with an Easter theme.