RACING has been given the green light to resume at Bellewstown next week after the track carried out work to rectify issues that saw meetings abandoned on two occasions last month.

There were unfortunate scenes at the Co Meath course when racing was called off on the flat card marking its 300th anniversary, with a number of horses found to be slipping. A day later, the final two races on a National Hunt fixture were abandoned following further slipping issues towards the end of the meeting.

The services of an agronomist were enlisted and several changes have been made at the popular track since those incidents. Inspections of the circuit were carried out this week, followed by a gallops morning on Friday, which confirmed that racing can take place as planned on Wednesday and Thursday next week. Those flat cards will be Bellewstown’s final fixtures of 2026.

Paul Murtagh, registrar of the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase CLG and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s head of raceday operations, told The Irish Field: “Following the two meetings that were abandoned at Bellewstown on the 25th and 26th of August, the IHRB and Bellewstown undertook a full review of the track. Bellewstown engaged an agronomist, Trevor Norris, immediately. Trevor has helped at a number of tracks this summer, including Clonmel and Listowel, and they are seeing the benefit of his input.

“Trevor was here a couple of days after the fixture and made a number of recommendations to improve the soil structure and to optimise grass conditions, paying particular attention to the west bend, where the horses were slipping. Bellewstown set about carrying out all of his recommendations and he was back a number of times, as have we, to monitor the progress.

“On Thursday, we inspected the track, to coincide with the agronomist’s latest visit, and we passed the course fit for racing. We found noticeable improvements in the soil structure and that is as a result of the Bellewstown ground staff’s hard work in carrying out those recommendations. Thankfully, the summer drought finishing has also helped. We’ve had about 25mm of rain here in the last two weeks, so that has been a benefit too.”

Course gallop

Trainers and jockeys with no shortage of experience of having winners at the track were reportedly positive about their experience when galloping at Bellewstown on Friday.

“Having passed the inspection on Thursday, Bellewstown reached out to the Irish Jockeys Association (IJA) and the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association (IRTA) to organise a galloping session, just to confirm our view that the track was suitable to race,” Murtagh continued.

“Thankfully, that went well. We had horses here from Gavin Cromwell, Tom McCourt and John McConnell, ridden by Siobhan Rutledge, James Ryan and Robert Whearty. They were very happy with the ground and the west bend, where the issues were. They did recommend a slight alteration to the bend past the stands, which the team are working on now. Fixtures go ahead as scheduled next week.

“I think the ground will be gauged at good to yielding, but official descriptions will be communicated from the IHRB in due course.”

The verdict will no doubt come as a relief to racecourse manager Jessica Cahalan, who was keen to praise the efforts of those driving the turnaround in conditions.

Cahalan said: “Vincent Eivers and his team, John Kirwan and many more, have put in a lot of work over the last four weeks to get this right. We’d like to express our thanks to them all, as well as the trainers, jockeys and officials from the IHRB, IRTA and IJA involved in our gallops here on Friday.

“Navan Racecourse lent us equipment too that was much appreciated and Trevor Norris obviously played a big part. All of the bodies have worked hard to make this possible and we’re very grateful for the support we’ve had here at Bellewstown.”