01 All Weather Racing / Betfair Education / 30 October 2008 / Leave a comment

Dundalk is Ireland's first all-weather track, and opened its doors back in August 2007. It's an oval shaped, left-handed Polytrack course of ten furlongs, situated in County Louth. It's also Ireland's only floodlit course so racing can take place on winter evenings.

Regular Irish racing pundit, Wayne Bailey, shares his findings from the first year of action at Dundalk.

In races up to one mile, a lower draw is favoured with 3 & 4 proving particularly successful. In races greater than one mile, no significant draw trends have emerged.

Thus far, the trainers to follow have been John Oxx and Ger Lyons who show a collective strike rate of 23% here, and a healthy profit if blindly backed.

The most successful Jockeys to date have been Johnny Murtagh and Mick Kinane, who are way ahead of their rivals showing strike rates of 29% and 25% respectively.

In non-handicaps, it's worth sticking with the classier sorts, and horses rated 100+ show a 25% strike-rate, and break even to level stakes.

Be careful when backing the 'jolly' here, as Dundalk ranks in the bottom half of Irish flat courses for winning favourites. Favourites win 29% of races here compared to the national average of 32%.