And they're off to the Limerick Christmas Racing Festival

THE traditional four-day Mr Binman Limerick Christmas Racing Festival gets underway today, St Stephen's Day at Greenmount Park.

The opening race at the Patrickswell venue gets underway on December 26 at 12.25pm with a three-year-old maiden hurdle.

The Festival is one of the biggest highlights of the local sporting and social calendar and provides a multimillion euro bonanza for the local economy, through racecourse direct sales, service contractors, bookmakers, hotels, restaurants, transport providers and employment provided.

This very popular four-day event, which runs until December 29, will feature 28 National Hunt races, a prize fund of over €600,000 and has something to enthral all generations. 

The feature race on the opening day of the Christmas Festival is the Grade 2 ‘Lyons of Limerick Jaguar Land Rover Novice Hurdle’  with a prize fund of €36,500 which goes to post at 1.33pm.

General manager at Limerick Racecourse, Tom Rudd said: "We have four days packed with something for everyone in the family, with live music every day, and look forward to welcoming racegoers, be they seasoned or novice attendees to our wonderful racecourse in Patrickswell."

This year’s Festival also marks the commencement of Limerick Racecourse’s sustainability journey, as it strives to become Ireland’s leading racecourse in sustainability. 

Full details on the Mr. Binman Christmas Racing Festival at Limerick Racecourse, and tickets from €20 p.p., are available at www.limerickraces.ie