Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) is soon to present its final blueprint for Ireland’s second all-weather racecourse in Tipperary to the Government. Yet, doubts still persist about the commencement date of construction.
The 2025 fixture schedule disclosed by the sport’s governing body on Friday includes 395 meetings, identical to this year’s count. However, HRI also issued a provisional schedule in case Tipperary Racecourse, owned by HRI, goes under renovation.
Should that occur, 10 events will be entirely relocated to different tracks, while the October mixed races will be shared between the Curragh and Gowran.
The ambition of HRI is to initiate the Tipperary project by the next Spring, aiming for completion by the final quarter of 2026.
The establishment of a new all-weather course at Tipperary, initially estimated to cost €18 million, has seen delays due to the Covid outbreak and planning holdups.
In 2022, Tipperary County Council granted planning consent, but an extended appeal procedure only concluded in January this year when An Bord Pleanála approved the construction.
Achieving a second all-weather track, paralleling Dundalk, is a significant goal for HRI. Final contract tender pricing is anticipated later this month, at which point HRI will solicit final endorsement for its business proposal from the Department of Agriculture in line with the Government’s infrastructure guidelines.
How swiftly that endorsement comes could influence whether HRI needs to resort to its backup fixture schedule.
In preparation for a possible closure, other courses were invited to bid to host Tipperary fixtures. Dundalk (twice), Fairyhouse, Gowran, and Cork look set to profit on the flat races while Listowel, Punchestown, Wexford, Limerick, and Galway may get an additional National Hunt race each.
Suzanne Eade, the head of HRI, anticipates the new track in Tipperary to be accessible by late 2026, with full-scale operational capacity expected a year later. The course will host approximately 30 events per annum, inclusive of the current turf track.
On the matter, HRI’s racing director Jonathan Mullin, made comments last Friday, emphasising consultation with a broad range of industry participants in the process of assembling the 2025 schedule. He expressed gratitude towards racecourses for their substantial inputs, especially considering the necessity to draft a ‘shadow’ 2025 schedule that would incorporate the upcoming addition of an all-weather course at Tipperary.
Furthermore, there will be a reserve of four “floating fixtures”, which can be used when the industry experiences an extreme increase in demand for horse population running opportunities.