Navan Racecourse
Last month, on this tour of Irish Racecourses I looked at Curragh racecourse, the home of the Irish Flat Racing. This month I’m looking at the Navan racecourse.
As before, I will begin by looking briefly at the track’s location, history, configuration before highlighting some significant track stats.
History and Location
Navan racecourse is located in County Meath and approximately 3 miles from the town of the same name. Whilst the racecourse stages both Flat and National Hunt racing, it’s arguably better known for the latter.
It is home to many top races over hurdles and fences and is at its busiest in the autumn, winter and spring months. The historic Troytown Handicap Chase, the Fortria Chase, the Lismullen Hurdle, the Boyne Hurdle and the Monksfield Novice Hurdle are some of the big National Hunt races. With the Group 3 Vintage Crop Stakes and the Listed Salsabil Stakes the best of the flat races held each season at the track.
You’re never far away from a race meeting at Navan. As the course holds fixtures every month during the year, (except during August) mostly at weekends.
Navan racecourse is a relatively new track and it first opened its doors on Friday 16th September 1921, although at this time it was still known as Proudstown Park. That first meeting was over the jumps although the chase course was not completed until December of that year. You can catch a brief glimpse of the scenes at that inaugural meeting in this historic Pathe film.
Plenty of great horses have run at the track including the likes of Hardy Eustace, Brave Inca, Moscow Flyer and Samcro.
The venue is now owned by Horse Racing Ireland and has witnessed plenty of changes since its opening, with the last major redevelopment being completed in 2017. It’s now considered one of the most modern racecourses in the whole of Ireland.
For those coming by car from Dublin, Navan is located 35 miles north-west of Dublin on the N3 and the racecourse is 3 miles from Navan town centre on the R162 Proudstown Road.
For those coming by public transport: Buses leave from Busaras (Dublin Central Bus Station) every hour from 7.30 am (9.00 am on Sundays) to Navan, stopping in Navan town centre. Given the racecourse is situated 3 miles outside the town the easiest way to get there is by taxi.
The closest railway station is in Drogheda, approximately 15 miles east of Navan. There is a bus service to Navan town centre from Drogheda from where you can get a taxi to the racecourse
The closest airport to Navan is Dublin. There is a regular Aircoach service from the airport to Navan town centre from where you will need to get a taxi to the racecourse.
Track Configuration
Flat Course
The flat course is a left-handed galloping track of one and half miles, the final straight includes an uphill finish of almost three and a half furlongs.
There’s also an additional six-furlong straight course that joins the main track on the entrance to the straight.
The punishing uphill finish to the line is one of the stiffest In Ireland and the ability to see out the trip is essential.
Hurdles Course
Chase Course
The chase course, is outside the hurdles track, has nine fences to a circuit, with three fences jumped in the home straight and a run-in of around a furlong.
Like the flat track there’s a stiff uphill finish to the winning post which on soft/ heavy winter ground puts stamina at a premium.
Navan Key Stats
Let’s begin by looking at some general stats at the racecourse including clear favourites, winning odds and wins at the track.
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 (07/05/20). Let’s begin by looking at the flat.
Flat
The results below contain 341 winners from 4254 runners 1034 placed
Favourites:
Clear favourites have produced the following set of results:
87 winners from 309 runners 28% -58.47 A/E 0.82 190 placed 61%
Breaking those results down into handicap & non-handicap races gives us:
- Non-handicaps – 54 winners from 155 runners 35% -33.8 A/E 0.80 103 placed 66%
- Handicaps – 33 winners from 154 runners 21% -24.67 A/E 0.84 87 placed 56%
Summary: Clear favourites have been winning 32% of races in Ireland during the period under research so favourites have been underperforming. The A/E stats also indicate that blindly backing favourites at the course offer poor value to punters.
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+
32 winners from 314 runners 10% -59.05 A/E 0.85 87 placed 28%
Summary: Given that the track is fair & galloping in nature it’s not surprising to see that Navan’s flat track doesn’t really produce many course specialists.
National Hunt
Now switching to the jumps.
The results below contain 364 winners from 4284 runners 1009 placed
Favourites
Clear favourites have produced the following set of results:
119 winners from 337 runners 35% -59.17 A/E 0.83 226 placed 67%
Breaking those results down into handicap & non-handicap races gives us:
- Non-handicaps – 94 winners from 220 runners 43% -34.46 A/E 0.86 115 placed 68%
- Handicaps – 25 winners from 117 runners 21% -24.71 A/E 0.74 75 placed 64%
Summary: Although the win strike rate for National Hunt clear favourites is better than on the flat at Navan the A/E stat still shows they don’t provide much in the way of value.
It’s been even worse for handicap favourites who have been performing 26% worse than market expectations.
General Stats
- Odds SP: 12/1 & above
46 winners from 2576 runners 2% -1658 A/E 0.48 222 placed 9%
Summary: Those runners sent off 12/1 & bigger are performing even worse than their flat counterparts.
- Wins at Track: 1+
58 winners from 434 runners 13% -80.36 A/E 0.83 139 placed 32%
Summary: As on the flat there’s not been a lot of value to be found backing previous course winners over jumps at Navan.
Trainers To Note
I like to finish of these course guides by looking at some trainer stats that hopefully will hopefully be worth following at the course.
Flat
Summary: Ger Lyons has a 26%-win strike rate with his runners at the track since the start of 2015 which is none too shabby.
However, it’s handicappers that have provide all the profit in that time.
National Hunt
Summary: Gordon Elliott has a decent 17%-win strike rate with his runners at the track. And, a decent looking angle looks to be following his bumper runners that are well fancied by the market and are either making their racecourse debut or had one previous run under rules.
Such qualifiers have been performing 30% better than market expectations with a healthy win strike rate of 57%. Interestingly those qualifiers ridden by Lisa O’Neill have produced – 8 winners from 9 runners 89% 9 placed 100%.
I hope you enjoyed this brief look at the Navan racecourse, next month, I will be looking at Naas racecourse.
Until next time
John Burke
Featured Image:http://(CC BY 4.0) – https://www.flickr.com/photos/vegaseddie
