Attendance at Punchestown going from strength to strength For the second year in a row Punchestown was blessed with good weather throughout the week and this led to bumper crowds across the five days. In total 139,017 people (new record attendance) turned up compared to 136,651 in 2025. Over 20,000 more people attended Punchestown this year than in 2024. Mullins Dominates Yet Again Horses trained by Willie Mullins once again dominated across the five days on the track at Punchestown and as a result he was crowned Champion National Hunt Trainer for the 20th time in his career. Mullins, now in his 70th year, continues to smash record after record and most of those records are already his own. His Punchestown tally of 13 winners this year falls a little way short of his record haul of 19 winners in 2021, but for the first time in his career he trained the winners of the Punchestown Gold Cup (Gaelic Warrior), Punchestown Champion Hurdle (Lossiemouth) and Punchestown Champion Chase (Il Etait Temps) in the same week. That achievement made all the more remarkable considering the same three horses also won those equivalent races at the Cheltenham festival earlier in the season. You'd have to feel for Gordon Elliott. Despite having one of his best seasons ever, amassing over €5 million in prize money in Ireland for only the second time in his career, he finishes runner-up to Mullins for the 14th season in a row. Elliott held a lead of €900,000 over Mullins after Christmas, but ended up €450,000 behind by the end of the season. 22 different trainers won races across the week at Punchestown, but Harry Derham was the only British-based trainer to get on the scoresheet. Last year there were 8 British-trained winners. Article highlights: Record attendance of 139,017 people at this year's Punchestown Festival Willie Mullins crowned Champion National Hunt Trainer for the 20th time For the first time ever, Mullins won the Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, and Champion Chase in the same week Only one British-trained winner compared to eight last year A Day at the Races I attended Punchestown last Tuesday and had a really nice day out, despite the bitter east wind. The opening day of these festivals is usually my favourite. The staff and crowd are always at their most attentive and enthusiastic and no one is hungover. I must say the racecourse looked immaculate in the Spring sunshine and everything from the car park layout, to the well thought out enclosure signage and an abundance of racecourse staff goes a long way towards making a day at an event like this run very smoothly. An attendance of 17,923 on Tuesday (up 81 people on the previous year, but still the lowest of the week) was very comfortable. No queues for drinks or toilets and the traffic flowed well both to and from the racecourse. One minor criticism, not necessarily confined to Punchestown, is the ridiculous number of pages in the official racecard. I understand that tracks like Punchestown are trying to maximise their revenue at big fixtures like this, but having to wade through 77 pages to find the runners for the 8 races is an absolute pain. With so many adverts in the racecard it is cheeky expecting punters to cough up €5 for the privilege of reading them. Attendance and Crowd Issues On Wednesday the attendance swelled to 26,432, but I have heard numerous reports that there was gridlock on the exit routes from the track at the end of the day. The narrow roads around Punchestown don't help the situation, but over an hour stuck in the car park will have taken the gloss off a day at the races for many. Friday is always the biggest day at Punchestown and a whopping 43,572 turned up this year (42,138 in 2025). It has long been a right of passage for Kildare students to get all dolled up for the Friday of Punchestown, but as the years go by the age demographic is getting younger. When my eldest daughter was in school it was confined to fifth year students from across the county that descended en masse to Punchestown on the Friday. By the time my second daughter (four years younger) went to secondary school the Transition Year students were also getting in on the act. Now I'm told by friends that their Inter Cert kids are beginning to get in on the action as well. 17 and 18-year-olds drinking and gambling is one thing, but when kids as young as 15 are doing the same thing it has to be of concern. Standout Performance On the racing front there were many standout performances across the week, but the one that really sticks out for me is Saratoga's performance in the Champion Four Year Old Hurdle on Saturday. This juvenile hurdler won his Grade One in an almost identical time to Champion Hurdle winner Lossiemouth the previous day and you'd have to feel sympathy for the connections of the six horses that were asked to give weight away to Saratoga in the Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham just five weeks earlier.
