Dublin Racing Festival Tips 2027: Dates, Preview and Trends

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By The Guv'nor · Last updated October 2026

Before any Dublin Racing Festival tips, the dates: the Dublin Racing Festival 2027 is on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 January at Leopardstown. Saturday is Irish Gold Cup day and Sunday is Irish Champion Hurdle day, with eight Grade 1s across the weekend. Below: race times, nine years of results and how DRF winners got on at Cheltenham.

Dublin Racing Festival 2027: dates and race schedule

Leopardstown's own DRF page has the festival on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 January, going into the Irish bank holiday weekend. That's about seven weeks before the Cheltenham Festival, which The Jockey Club lists for Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March 2027.

There are four Grade 1s each day, with the handicaps and bumpers filling the gaps. These are the running orders Leopardstown has published so far. Day 1's is marked "subject to change" and Day 2's still carries a 2026 sponsor's name on one race, so treat the times and titles as provisional until the entries are out.

The big trial before all this is Leopardstown's own Christmas meeting, 26 to 29 December 2026, which I cover in my Leopardstown Christmas Festival preview. It's the same track, and often the same horses: Galopin Des Champs, for one, ran in the Savills Chase there on 28 December 2025 before the 2026 Irish Gold Cup.

The big races: the Irish Gold Cup and the Irish Champion Hurdle

The two headline races swapped days in 2022. From 2018 to 2021 the Champion Hurdle was on the Saturday and the Gold Cup on the Sunday; since 2022 the Gold Cup has been the Saturday race. The exception was 2026, when a waterlogged Saturday pushed it to the Monday. For 2027 it's back on the Saturday.

I've put both races' winners since the DRF began in 2018 next to what each one did at the Cheltenham Festival that March. Every SP here is the official starting price from the published results.

Irish Gold Cup (about 3 miles, Grade 1 chase)

That's 24 furlongs, roughly 4,800 metres, on the chase course. If you're after Irish Gold Cup tips, this is where I'd start. Four horses have won the Irish Gold Cup and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in the same season: Jodami (1993), Imperial Call (1996), Sizing John (2017) and Galopin Des Champs (2023 and 2024).

Two things jump out. Before Galopin Des Champs came along, the Irish Gold Cup winner went to Cheltenham five times (2018-2022) and the best it managed was fifth. And five of the nine winners were 9-year-olds. The 2026 Cheltenham Gold Cup went to Gaelic Warrior, who'd been second at Leopardstown, so the DRF form still mattered even when the winner didn't. My Cheltenham Gold Cup preview picks it up from there.

Irish Champion Hurdle (2 miles, Grade 1 hurdle)

16 furlongs, about 3,200 metres. For Irish Champion Hurdle tips, this has been the cleaner Cheltenham trial.

That's a much stronger link: all nine winners went on to Cheltenham, four of them won there and three more finished second. In 2026 the Leopardstown result got turned round, though. Lossiemouth was beaten into second at 4/6 behind Brighterdaysahead, then won the Champion Hurdle at 7/5 with Brighterdaysahead second. There's more on that race in my Champion Hurdle preview.

What the DRF tells us about Cheltenham (data)

I took every Grade 1 at the Dublin Racing Festival from 2018 to 2026 (71 races) and followed the first three home to the Cheltenham Festival that same March. The table shows how they did at Cheltenham and what you'd have made backing every one of them to win at level stakes, 1 point each at the official SP.

Look, DRF winners are clearly good horses. 59% of them finished in the first three at Cheltenham. But everyone knows they're good, so the price reflects it, and blindly backing the lot at Cheltenham lost 23 points from 64 bets. Back in 2026 not one of the six DRF Grade 1 winners who travelled won at the Festival.

The beaten horses are the more interesting group. They showed a level-stakes profit in 2024 (+11.00pt from 10 runs) and 2026 (+14.15pt from 12), because a few came back to win at decent prices, like Captain Guinness (third at 16/1 in the 2024 Dublin Chase, won the Champion Chase at 17/2). Those are single seasons with tiny samples, and over the full nine years the group still lost 32.82 points from 106 bets. So it's a nudge to look again at a beaten horse, not a system.

Favourites at the DRF

Same results, different question: how have the favourites done at the festival itself? Each joint favourite counts as its own 1pt bet, which is why there are 142 favourites across 135 races.

Grade 1 favourites have actually paid their way here, which isn't what you'd expect, though 73 bets is a small sample and a couple of beaten odds-on shots would wipe it out. The fields are small (7.3 runners on average across the 71 Grade 1s) and the best horse usually turns up. In the big handicaps it's the other way round, with favourites winning 11 times from 50. For the bigger picture across all racing, see how often favourites win. One more thing: Willie Mullins trained 45 of the 71 DRF Grade 1 winners in this period, so expect plenty of short-priced favourites from that yard.

Leopardstown in February: course and going notes

Leopardstown reports the going separately for the hurdles track and the chase track, and in the week before the meeting they update it around 9am each day. Check both, because they can be quite different. For the 2026 festival the final report read heavy on the hurdles course and soft on the chase course.

The weather can bite, too. In 2026 the Saturday card was abandoned because the course was waterlogged, and those seven races were run on Monday 2 February instead. Here's the official going for the two big races in each year:

Five of the nine Champion Hurdles were run on soft or worse, and only 2019 was quicker than yielding. Cheltenham isn't always quicker, mind: the Champion Hurdle there was run on heavy (soft in places) in 2018 and 2024, and on good to soft in 2022, 2025 and 2026. Field sizes in the two big races have been small, from 4 to 12 runners, so a bit of ground preference goes a long way. Going terms are explained in my going guide.

How I approach the DRF

Look, I'm essentially a statistics/maths geek, so with a weekend like this I treat every price as a probability and ask whether it's right. The Grade 1s are small fields, often with a short-priced favourite, and if I am honest, even with the table above showing Grade 1 favourites in profit, a 1/3 shot doesn't leave much meat on the bone. Anyone can talk about high win rates when they tip odds-on horses all day. I care about profit month to month.

So I'm happier looking for an outsider at a proper price, particularly in the big handicaps, where the table above shows favourites don't have it their own way. Even when those place, they can pay more than an odds-on shot winning. A 'banker' is what I call a shorter-priced, solid bet, and I'll only have one if the price stacks up.

Festival or not, my staking stays the same. Divide your bank into points, say 1pt = €5 on a €100 bank (or £5 on £100), and don't double up on a Grade 1 because it feels special. If I'm not sure about a race I skip it. I bet on every horse I tip, and if there's stable information or smart money moving that weekend, members hear about it.

My actual Dublin Racing Festival selections go out to Winners Club members in my morning newsletter.

Price

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My promise.

Look, I can't guarantee every tip every day is going to win (anyone that can is a fraudster). But I can promise you that every horse I will tip I am betting on myself and through my data analysis techniques it should be in with a very strong chance of bolting up and winning and over a long enough period you will be profitable.

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- The Guv'nor

After the festival: how DRF form played out at Cheltenham

The DRF is the last big Irish weekend before Cheltenham, so the ante-post markets react straight after it. Here is how the 2026 form played out. It's hindsight, a single season, and it's here as a worked example:

• Lossiemouth was beaten at 4/6 in the Irish Champion Hurdle, then won the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham at 7/5.
• Gaelic Warrior was second in the Irish Gold Cup at 4/1, then won the Cheltenham Gold Cup at 11/4.
• None of the six DRF Grade 1 winners who ran at the 2026 Festival won there.

The point, from one season in hindsight: Leopardstown form is a guide, not a verdict, and the full nine-year table above says backing either the winners or the beaten horses blind at Cheltenham lost money. I'll add what happened at the 2027 festival here within a week of it, including which of these trends held up. For the Festival itself, start with my Cheltenham Festival tips and trends, and for the rest of the season's dates, see the big races calendar.

Dublin Racing Festival tips: your questions answered

When is the Dublin Racing Festival 2027?

Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 January 2027 at Leopardstown, according to the racecourse's Dublin Racing Festival page.

What day is the Irish Gold Cup in 2027?

Saturday 30 January 2027, at 3.30pm on Leopardstown's provisional running order. The Irish Champion Hurdle is on Sunday 31 January at 3.20pm.

How many Grade 1 races are at the Dublin Racing Festival?

Eight, four on each day. In 2018 there were seven, because the Dublin Chase was a Grade 2 race before it was upgraded in 2019.

Is the Dublin Racing Festival a good guide to Cheltenham?

For finding the right horses, yes. 59% of DRF Grade 1 winners (38 of 64, 2018-2026) finished in the first three at Cheltenham. For finding value, less so: backing all of them to win at SP lost 23.15 points.

Where can I get Dublin Racing Festival tips?

This page is the preview and the trends. My actual DRF tips for 2027 go out on the day through my tips service, and my Irish horse racing tips page covers the rest of the Irish season.

More in this guide

• Irish horse racing tips and festival previews
• Leopardstown Christmas Festival tips
• Irish Grand National tips and trends
• Punchestown Festival tips
• Cheltenham Festival tips