Punchestown is the home of National Hunt racing in Ireland and the Co Kildare venue is once more getting geared up for their end of season festival.

The Punchestown Festival is a five-day celebration of Irish jumps racing, with lots of Grade 1 races and well over €3m in prize money to be had.

This year, the meeting runs from Tuesday April 29th until Saturday May 3rd and we're taking a look at the track profile at peerless Punchestown.

The jewel in the crown

Punchestown is widely viewed as the jewel in Ireland's jumps racing crown. Situated on the outskirts of Naas in Co Kildare, the track is around 35km southwest of Dublin and Punchestown's five-day Festival at the end of April each year attracts huge crowds, who swarm to the racecourse to experience action-packed racing and lively entertainment.

The Festival is the major end of season attraction, featuring 12 Grade 1 races, while earlier in the season races like the John Durkan Memorial Chase and the Morgiana Hurdle are key stops in the calendar.

Punchestown is also famous for its cross country races, as the famous banks and ditches in the wide open expanses of the Kildare countryside are jumped in races like the La Touche Cup and the Ladies Cup.

The test in store

There are two main tracks at Punchestown, with the cross country course joining the racecourse proper.It was founded in the 19th century, with the first day of racing famously attended by one solitary spectator.

Today, the five-day Punchestown Festival attracts an annual audience of over 130,000 to the venue. Punchestown is a right-handed, galloping, undulating track with a steady climb through the last five furlongs to the winning post.

The fences on Punchestown's chase track are regarded as stiff but fair, offering a sound test of jumping ability. There are 11 fences to a circuit.

The hurdles track is more undulating, and a downhill section just beyond the winning post is known to make life difficult. There are eight hurdles on the main hurdles course, while an inner loop can up that number by one per circuit.

The Cross Country course, meanwhile, is a long and twisting one over a variety of banks and other obstacles, few of which are jumped more than once. The turns are both left- and right-handed and only the final brush fence is on the racecourse proper.

The experts view

The best jumps jockeys in Britain and Ireland have performed at Punchestown and their views help paint the picture of how the track rides.

Charlie Swan, nine times champion jockey in Ireland during a dominant era in the 1990s, told Sky Sports Racing of the Kildare layout: "The bends are very tight, especially the second-last bend, and in reality it is sharper than most people appreciate. Because of its nature, I'd much rather be handier than held up."

Ruby Walsh famously signed off his decorated career by riding Kemboy to win the Punchestown Gold Cup in 2019, the 213th Grade 1 winner of his astonishing career.

Now a successful pundit, he told Racing TV: "It's a huge, incredibly wide racecourse and as regards the racing surface it's unbelievable. They have that much ground to work with, but it is so well maintained and there's always a lot of fresh ground."