Courses

Oldtown

Track info

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County: Dublin

Soil Type: Surface Water Gleys - fine, loamy

Fences per circuit: 6 (additional fence on run-in)

Fences per 3 mile race: 14

Direction: Right-Handed

Course Distance:

Elevation Change (Highest to Lowest Point):

TRACK GUIDE

Point-to-Point racing returned to Co. Dublin with the re-introduction of the course at Oldtown in 2012, a track which had remained absent from the racing calendar for a near 40-year period stretching back to 1974.

A big galloping track with a separate finishing chute, Oldtown is described by many as one of the best point-to-point courses in the country and its recent roll of honour backs that up. Horses such as Thunder And Roses, Very Wood, Psycho, and Forever Gold, who between them are the winners of the Irish National, Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and a number of other graded races, all graduated from the course, as did most expensive horse ever to be sold after winning a point-to-point. The ill-fated Flemenshill went on to be sold for 480,000 pounds after he won the four-year-old maiden at the course in 2017.

In all 3-mile races, the runners begin at the back of the third-last fence in the home straight, and race downhill over the first fence, before turning right handed. Before beginning the uphill climb away from the public enclosure, the field jump fence number two. Oldtown is one of the only point-to-point courses in the country to feature an open ditch which is jumped as fence three, after which the ground begins to rise.

In total, there are five fences on each circuit, with an additional fence, the final obstacle, located in the finishing chute.

BARRY O'NEILL

Oldtown is as close to a racecourse standard track as we have in point-to-points. It is a very big galloping track and they have big fences too.

It is one of the only places in Ireland where you jump an open ditch. It can be quite daunting for four-year-olds on their first outings, as it is usually one of the first four-year-old races of the year and it is such a big open place.

But it is a very good track. When you turn into the home straight at the top of the track on the last lap, there is probably the guts of four furlongs still to race, so you always want to have enough left up your sleeve to get home.

Horses can get tired from the bottom of the hill to the finish and if you have not saved enough you can get caught out. The big home straight allows you to ride patiently as you have loads of time.