Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) has announced four additional fixtures to be held at Dundalk early in 2021.

The extra meetings will be added to the first two months of the 2021 fixture list to cope with the recent high levels of entries at the track and the significant numbers of horses that have been balloted out of races at each of their last three meetings.

The extra meetings will be held on:

Monday, January 11 (Afternoon)

Wednesday, January 20 (Evening)

Monday, February 1 (Afternoon)

Wednesday, February 17 (Afternoon)

Jason Morris, HRI Director of Racing, said: “We have had representations from the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, the Restricted Trainers Association and the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners, all of whom have expressed serious concern. We are therefore pleased to be able to provide these additional opportunities during January and February to augment the existing programme.

“We envisage scheduling four or five races at each of these new meetings to allow for potential divides of multiple races to create eight-race cards at the additional fixtures. This approach has worked well in the past.

“We are grateful to Dundalk Racecourse for agreeing to contribute towards the funding of these meetings, as is the case with any additional fixtures allocated to racecourses.

“The dates and times for these meetings have been reviewed with SIS to identify the most beneficial slots from a betting turnover perspective and we are grateful to them for supporting the scheduling of these additional meetings.

"We have also liaised closely with Racing TV to ensure that we are maximising broadcast coverage for these new fixtures.”

An eight-race card at Dundalk can hold 112 runners but at the previous three meetings, totals of 343, 303 and 342 horses have been entered.