Naas Racecourse

History and Location

Last month, on this tour of Irish Racecourses I looked at Navan racecourse, the home of the Irish Flat, this month I’m taking a trip to Naas.

As before, I will begin by looking briefly at the track’s location, history, configuration before highlighting some significant track stats.

Naas racecourse is located just outside the town of Naas, in County Kildare, about 20 miles from Dublin.

Racing takes place throughout the year and the course is home to both flat and National Hunt racing. The course hosts several Graded races during the winter, including the Grade 1 Slaney Novice Hurdle., which was won this year by subsequent Cheltenham Supreme Novices Hurdle Winner Envoi Allen.

On the flat the most valuable races are the Group 3 Lacken Stakes & Blue Wind Stakes.

During the recent refurbishment of the Curragh racecourse a number of Group races were moved to Naas.

In 1922 a group of local businessmen and farmers teamed up to create the Naas Race Company. The first race meeting was held in June 1924 and racing has taken place at the venue ever since.

The racecourse is conveniently located on the edge of Naas town, just off the M7 motorway linking Dublin with Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny and Waterford.

For those coming by public transport there are plenty of options from Dublin. JJ Kavanagh & Sons have 24 daily bus services from Dublin City Centre to Naas and Dublin Coach provide a direct service to the races on all race days from Dublin Airport to Naas.

A train service is available from Dublin Heuston station, to Sallins, located just outside the town of Naas, which is the closest railway station to Naas Racecourse.

The racecourse provide a shuttle bus service on all race’s days from Sallins Train Station to the track before and after racing to coincide with arriving and departing train times on the day.

Naas Racecourse Track Configuration

Naas racecourse in an undulating galloping, left-handed, one mile and four furlongs circuit with a fairly long, stiff uphill climb to the finish.

A two-furlong chute at the entrance of the challenging home straight allows for five & six-furlong sprints to take place on a straight course

Flat Course

Work has been carried out on the sprint course to attempt to even out the track. There have only been 85 races over 5 & 5 ½ f in the past five years but looking at the stats it seems that there is a very slight bias to lower drawn runners over the minimum trip.

Over 6f which has seen more races (261), there doesn't seem to be much of a bias.

Granted runners tend to congregate towards the middle of the course, partly due to the narrowing of the track.

There does, however, tend to be bias when the going is soft or heavy when a low draw is favoured.

Races over 7f & 1m begin from a chute at the top of the course and there is a long run which allows jockeys to get a good position at the home turn.

Looking at handicap races over 7f & 1m, runners drawn in the first or last quarter are very slightly favoured.

The draw does seem to have a much bigger impact in the longer distance races.  Looking at handicap races from 1m 2f+.

You do need to be wary of horses with a high draw. Horses drawn in the first quarter have been favoured and have actually performed 15% better than market expectations.

Hurdles Course

Chase Course

The chase course is outside the hurdles course. It has eight fences on the circuit, two of which are in the 4f long home straight. There’s a run in of about a furlong to the finish.

Just like the flat track. The jumps course is galloping in character, with a stiff uphill finish, and it suits horses that stay well. Stamina really comes to the fore over jumps when the ground gets very testing during the winter.

Despite the stiff finish it tends to pay for a horse to be handy, as it can be hard to make up too much ground from off the pace. The Naas fences are fairly stiff in nature but there are no awkward fences which can catch out novices.

Naas Key Stats

Let’s begin by looking at some general stats at the racecourse including clear favourites, winning odds and course winners.

Once again, I am using the ever reliable www.horseracebase.com  for the stats.

The stats below are from Jan 1st, 2015 to the time of writing (10/06/20). Let’s begin by looking at the flat.

Flat

The results below contain 431 winners from 5193 runners 1269 placed

Favourites:

Clear favourites have produced the following set of results:

125 winners from 381 runners 33% -42.98 A/E 0.91 229 placed 60%

Breaking those results down into handicap & non-handicap races gives us:

1.     Non-handicaps – 97 winners from 240 runners 40% -8.31 A/E 0.97 163 placed 68%.

2.     Handicaps – 28 winners from 141 runners 20% -34.67 A/E 0.76 66 placed 47%

Summary:

Clear favourites in non-handicaps are performing well enough but handicap favourites are performing well below market expectations.

General Stats

1.     Odds SP: 12/1 & above

70 winners from 2448 runners 3% -1149 A/E 0.64 289 placed 12%

Summary:

Runners sent off 11/1 & under are favoured.

Yes, there are big priced winners to be found at Navan but as at most tracks the pool is a small one to be fishing in and they don’t offer much in the way of value either.

2.     Wins at Track: 1+

47 winners from 384 runners 12% -81.03 A/E 0.86 122 placed 32%

Summary:

The track is fair & galloping in character so it’s not surprising to see that the flat track doesn’t really produce too many course specialists.

National Hunt

Now switching to the jumps.

The results below contain 272 winners from 3062 runners 721 placed.

Favourites

Clear favourites have produced the following set of results:

100 winners from 251 runners 40% -26.24 A/E 0.92 116 placed 66%

Breaking those results down into handicap & non-handicap races gives us:

1.     Non-handicaps – 81 winners from 178 runners 46% -20.95 A/E 0.91 131 placed 74%

2.     Handicaps – 19 winners from 73 runners 26% -5.29 A/E 0.98 35 placed 48%

Summary:

Although the win strike rate for National Hunt clear favourites is better than on the flat the A/E stat still shows they don’t provide much in the way of value. 

Clear favourites in handicaps do much better than their flat counterparts.

General Stats

1.     Odds SP: 12/1 & above

33 winners from 1804 runners 2% -1175 A/E 0.53 143 placed 8%

Summary:

Those runners sent off 12/1 & bigger are performing even worse against market expectations than their flat counterparts.

2.     Wins at Track: 1+

36 winners from 215 runners 16% -32.94 A/E 0.97 75 placed 35%

Summary:

Previous course winners over jumps have done better than those on the flat and a bit better than average when compared to all National Hunt tracks in Ireland.

Trainers to Note

I like to finish off these course guides by looking at some trainer stats that hopefully will be worth following at the course.

Here are three trainers to note.

Flat

Summary:  All bar one of Aidan O’Brien’s handicap winners didn’t meet the above criteria.

Summary:  The trainer is 1 winner from 18 runners 6% -12.5 A/E 0.47 2 placed 11% with his Naas handicap runners in races beyond 6f.

National Hunt

Summary: Henry De Bromhead is 3 winners from 19 runners 16% -3 A/E 0.65 9 placed 47% with his chase runners that had run at Grade 1 level.

I hope you enjoyed this brief look at the Naas racecourse. Next month, I will be heading over to Killarney.

Until next time.

John Burke