The History of the Curragh Racecourse, Ireland's Home of Flat Racing

The Curragh: Ireland's Oldest Racing Ground

The Curragh is more than a racecourse. It's a 5,000-acre open plain in County Kildare, about 30 miles west of Dublin, and it has been tied to horses, armies and Irish history for centuries. The racecourse sits on the northern edge of that plain, but the whole area shares the same story.

Long before the modern grandstand or the Irish Classics, this open grassland was already shaping Ireland's sporting identity. The recorded story runs from folklore to one of Europe's leading flat-racing venues. For Festival and fixture context, see our horse racing betting guide and the September and October Irish racing fixtures lists.

Myth, Legend and the Earliest Racing on the Plain

Irish folklore places the legendary warrior Fionn MacCumhaill and his men racing horses across the plain from the nearby Hill of Allen. Other tales describe 3rd-century kings and chieftains racing chariots here, and a 5th-century King of Leinster granting St. Brigid all the land her cloak could cover — a cloak said to have stretched right across the Curragh. These stories mix myth and history, but archaeologists have found gathering sites and settlement traces on the plain that match a very long relationship between this land, horses and ceremony.

By the 1600s, that folklore had turned into organised sport. Records show 17th-century noblemen staging match races here, pitting one horse against another over a 4-mile course — an early version of the "Sport of Kings" reputation the Curragh still carries.

From Match Races to a Governing Body

The 1868 Curragh of Kildare Act

By the mid-1800s, the Curragh was being used for grazing, military training and racing all at once, and Parliament stepped in. A commission examined the plain's future in 1865, and the result was the 1868 Curragh of Kildare Act, which settled rights of common pasture and preserved the land specifically for horse racing and training. That legal protection is a big part of why the plain still looks much as it always has.

Cavalry regiments also trained here before the Crimean War, the Boer War and the First World War, and nearly 200 archaeological monuments have been identified across the plain, which is now protected as a Special Area of Conservation.

Home of the Irish Classics

All five of Ireland's flat-racing Classics are run at the Curragh, across 23 race days and 11 Group 1 contests between late March and early November.

The Irish Derby, first run in 1866, has become a genuinely global fixture — Nijinsky won it in 1970 as part of his English and Irish Derby double, and later Derby winners Galileo, Camelot and Australia kept that tradition alive.

Champions Bred on Curragh Turf

The Curragh doubles as the nursery for Irish flat racing, feeding success at Royal Ascot, the Breeders' Cup and the Arc. Sadler's Wells won the 1984 Irish 2,000 Guineas here before shaping modern breeding as a stallion. Galileo took the 2001 Derby and became one of the world's most important sires. Enable powered clear in the 2017 Irish Oaks on her way to greatness, and Alpha Centauri produced one of the strongest three-year-old filly seasons in recent memory after winning the 2018 1,000 Guineas.

The Training Grounds

Around the track sit 1,500 acres of training grounds, with more than 70 miles of turf gallops, 12 miles of peat gallops and eight all-weather surfaces. The Old Vic woodchip gallop, run over nine furlongs, is one of the best known and is often used to sharpen stayers. The open, exposed nature of the plain — wind, rain, cold and sun all year round — is often credited with toughening up Irish-trained horses before they travel abroad.

The 2019 Redevelopment

Between 2017 and 2019, the Curragh underwent a major rebuild designed by Grimshaw Architects, completed in spring 2019 at a final cost of approximately €81.2 million.

The new grandstand's roof was designed to echo the undulating landscape of the plain itself, and the arrivals reception now houses a museum dedicated to the history of Irish horse racing. Race days continued through the build using temporary facilities, so the season's rhythm was never interrupted.

How We Compiled This History

This article draws on published background on the Curragh's origins, its 1727 first meeting and the 1868 Act, a Smithsonian American History Museum object description of an 1867 print of the racecourse, and reported figures on the 2019 redevelopment. Where sources gave slightly different wording for the same fact — such as the translation of "Curragh" — we've noted both rather than presenting one as definitive. See our trust methodology.

Records, Recent Form and Visiting the Curragh

Johnny Murtagh and Mick Kinane are widely named among the Curragh's leading riders by career wins. We have not confirmed official totals from the Curragh or the Turf Club, so we are not publishing a ranked figure here.

The Curragh Cup, while not one of the five Classics, is a regular feature-race highlight:

For a closer look, Horse Country runs a behind-the-scenes tour of the Curragh, with access to areas normally reserved for racing professionals, including the jockeys' changing room and stable yard.