The picturesque racecourse of Sligo is situated 140km north of Galway and plays host to both flat and national hunt racing. Fixtures at Sligo take place between May and October each year and the course hosts a total of 8 fixtures each season.

Sligo Course Characteristics

A circuit of Sligo racecourse is around a mile in distance. It’s a tricky, undulating, right handed track with sharp bends. The run in is only two furlongs long and although it’s a slightly uphill finish, it is largely a course that suits speedier types.

The chase course is situated on the outside of the hurdle course. There are five fences to a circuit and a good position going into the straight can be a huge advantage.

Sligo Top Flat Jockeys

Billy Lee and Declan McDonogh lead the way as the top flat jockeys at Sligo since 2009 at the time of writing with 15 and 14 wins respectively. Shane Foley and Chris Hayes are not far behind in the chasing pack with 12 wins each whilst several jockeys have 11 wins. There is certainly no clear leading jockey on the flat at Sligo.

The best win percentage on the flat here belongs to Oisin Orr who has won 5 from 25, giving him a strike rate of 20%. Declan McDonogh not only performs well here in terms of number of winners, he also has the second best strike rate at Sligo of 18.42%.

Sligo Top Jumps Jockeys

Paul Townend and Mark Walsh are the leading jockeys over obstacles here at Sligo of those who are still riding (Ruby Walsh leads the way in terms of wins since 2009). Townend has ridden 17 Sligo winners since 2009 whilst Walsh is just behind with 15 victories.

Of all the jockeys to have registered at least five wins here since 2009, Kevin Brouder shows the best strike rate overall. He has 5 wins from 20 rides giving him an impressive 25% win strike rate. Jack Kennedy has a strike rate of 22.22% and Paul Townend has a strike rate of 21.79% so those three jockeys are all worth paying attention to at Sligo when riding.

Sligo Top Flat Trainers

Dermot Weld 17 flat wins at Sligo since 2009 means he has almost twice as many flat wins as anyone else during that time period. Michael Mulvany comes out next best here with 10 winners, although there are plenty of trainers vying for that second best spot with several within a win or two of overtaking Michael Mulvany.

The best win strike rate for a flat trainer at Sligo belongs to Jessica Harrington and Pat Flynn, who both win with 33.33% of their runners at Sligo. Harrington has 8 winners here since 2009 compared to Flynn’s 5 so her data is slightly more reliable but clearly both trainers should be very much respected here. Remarkably their win PL figures are almost identical, Harrington’s runners have provided a win PL of 15.41 whilst for Flynn it is 15.01.

Dermot Weld was noted as the winningmost trainer on the flat here since 2009 and his strike rate of 21.25% is also very good but backing his runners blind would have resulted in a win PL of -16.33, which is amongst the worst records of all the trainers who have five flat wins here since 2009.

Sligo Top Jump Trainers

Willie Mullins is the clear top jumps trainer at Sligo with 30 wins since 2009. He’s well clear of Gordon Elliott who has saddled 18 wins at the course  and also John Ryan who has 11 winners at the time of writing.

The best jumps trainer in terms of win strike rate at Sligo is again Willie Mullins who has a very impressive 48.39% strike rate, meaning almost every other horse he runs at Sligo is a winner. They are clearly well found in the market though as backing all his runners blind still makes a level stakes loss of -1.01. Michael ‘Mouse’ Morris isn’t far off Mullins with his strike rate though. A taking 42.86% of his runners at Sligo are victorious are backing all of those would have produced a win PL of 15.25. The best win PL here from the jumps trainers belongs to Niall Madden who has 7 wins from 22 runners and an impressive win PL of 42.25.

Sligo Draw Bias

There isn’t a huge amount of data for each of the flat distances Sligo races over due to the amount of fixtures they hold. What data there is suggests that a high draw is a disadvantage over 7f (high draw PRB is just 0.46 at this distance) and also at 10f (high draw PRB is just 0.43 at this distance).

There seems to be no draw bias at distances beyond 10f whilst at sprint distances middle draws have performed relatively poorly but there is little reason why both low and high draws would be massively favoured over middle draws in those circumstances so that may just be a quirk of not having lots of data.

Sligo Pace Bias

Across every distance on the flat at Sligo those that are up with the pace outperform runners that are ridden more patiently.

Front runners have been very profitable to back blind at Sligo on the flat, producing a win PL of 97. That compares extremely favourably to the almost -200 win PL provided by each of prominent, mid division and held up.

Every single metric supports the theory that the closer you are to the pace on the flat at Sligo, the better your chance of winning and the better value offered by that runner.

It’s a similar case over hurdles at Sligo.

Once again we can see front runners have been profitable to back blind whilst all other run styles are in a huge loss to level stakes. The win percentages for front runners and prominent racers is far higher than those for mid division and held up, as are the IV figures.

The place percentages are actually very similar between front runners and prominent runners and both are substantially better than mid division and held up.

Once again, on the chase course at Sligo there is also a strong pace bias towards front runners.

It’s perhaps not quite as strong as on the hurdle course but front runners are yet again profitable to follow and offer the best win percentage and IV. The place percentage is actually slightly better for prominent racers and mid division performs pretty well in comparison too, certainly compared to the same run style on the flat and over hurdles. Once again though being held up here is a huge disadvantage and hold up performers should be approached with extreme caution on all courses at Sligo.