The largest racing festival of the winter season and was launched by sports pundit Eamon Dunphy in Ron Blacks on Tuesday 4th December. The Leopardstown Christmas Festival starts on December 26th and runs for four days to December 29th.

The Lexus Chase, on December 28th, is certain to be the sporting and social highlight of the four-day festival with entries including Beef or Salmon, The Listener and Denman. ‘The Lexus’ is now the richest race in winter national hunt racing with the prize fund increased to a guaranteed minimum prize value of €200,000.

Lexus Ireland will host the first ‘Best-Dressed Lady’ at the Leopardstown Christmas Festival. Lexus Ireland has partnered with The Ritz-Carlton, Powerscourt, to offer the winner of Ladies Day at The Lexus Chase a prize valued €15,000, making it the richest Ladies Day prize in winter racing. The ‘Best Dressed Lady’ will win luxury Lexus chauffeur transfers to the five-star Ritz-Carlton, Powerscourt, where they will stay in the ultra-exclusive Presidential Suite for two nights, enjoying dinner for two at Gordon Ramsay, luxury ESPA Pampering, plus a €2,000 shopping spree with a style counsel advisor, including champagne breakfast, at Dundrum Town Centre.

The opening day of the festival will be sponsored by Durkan New Homes with a prize fund of €324,000 and the feature race, the Grade 1 Durkan New Homes Novice Chase. Paddy Power Bookmakers sponsors all races on day two with a total prize fund of €417,000.  The Paddy Power Handicap Chase, which was won last year by Tom Taaffe-trained Cane Brake is sure to attract a large field.  Bewleys Hotels continues its sponsorship of the fourth day, covering six of the races, with their feature race the Grade 1 bewleyshotel.com Festival hurdle, which was won last year by Brave Inca.

Knight Frank Ganly Walters will sponsor the Grade 1 Knight Frank Ganly Walters Novice Chase while Woodies DIY will sponsor the Grade 2 Hurdle.

Tom Burke, Manager of Leopardstown Racecourse, said “The National Hunt Festival at Leopardstown is the highlight of many peoples Christmas calendar and we expect attendance to exceed last years record numbers of over 63,000.  The overall prize-money of €1.3 million will attract the best horses, providing top class racing to entertain the crowd.”

Guests at the launch included leading NH jockey Davy Russell, trainer Tom Taaffe, HRI Chief Executive Brian Kavanagh, Paddy Power, Lexus Ireland’s Mark Teevan, Bill and Liam Durkan and Clio O’Gara of Bewleys Hotels.