Listowel Harvest Festival leads road to 2027 Grand National

The new National Hunt season is now upon us, which means we’ve reached a significant moment in the build-up to the 2027 Grand National. Mark your card, so this month’s key races don’t pass you by. September offers one genuinely significant race and a scattering of cards that matter more than they look.

The reason to pay attention this early is administrative. Grand National runners must be seven or older, rated at least 125 by the BHA, and previously placed in a recognised chase over 2m 7½f or further. The field is capped at 34 and filled from the top of the ratings down. Entries close in January, the weights are published in February. Every autumn run either pushes a horse’s rating towards the cut or adds pounds to its back in April.

The Kerry National, Wednesday 23 September

Listowel’s seven-day Harvest Festival runs from Sunday 20 to Saturday 26 September, and the Guinness Kerry National on the Wednesday is the most direct Aintree feeder of the whole autumn. It is a Grade 3 handicap chase worth €200,000, run over an official three miles, in practice 2m 7f 180y.

The pipeline is easy to demonstrate. Spanish Harlem took the 2025 renewal at 16-1 for Willie Mullins and Danny Mullins, making most of the running and coming home four and a half lengths clear of Gordon Elliott’s Three Card Brag, with the veteran French Dynamite third. Both the winner and runner-up lined up in the Grand National the following April. Three Card Brag finished ninth; Spanish Harlem was pulled up.

Older history points the same way. Monty’s Pass won at Listowel before landing the 2003 Grand National, and the race has attracted high-class staying handicappers ever since.

The unglamorous cards

Down Royal and Roscommon on Monday 28 September, Cork on Tuesday 29 September, then Bellewstown and Sligo on Wednesday 30 September. None of these will make a headline. They are where second-tier handicappers reappear after a summer off, and where qualifying runs over the right trip get entered in the book. For a horse that needs a placed effort over 2m 7½f simply to be eligible next April, a September Tuesday at Cork is as consequential as anything at Cheltenham.

British jump racing in September remains in summer mode, with the better horses not yet out. The season proper does not start until Chepstow’s three-day meeting in the second week of October.

What September will not tell you

Absence is not a signal. The last three Grand Nationals went to Willie Mullins, and none of his winners were sighted this early. I Am Maximus, who in April became the first horse since Red Rum to regain the title, opened that campaign by finishing second in the Savills Chase in the final days of December, then ran fifth in the Irish Gold Cup in February. The elite Irish stayers will not appear before November.

So judge stables rather than individuals. Whether Closutton and Cullentra have their staying strings ticking over, and whether the British yards that produced last season’s Aintree runners are in early form, tells you more in September than any single result.

Winning now is also double-edged. A Kerry National victory banks prize money and lifts a rating towards the top 34, which is the only route into the race. It also means a heavier weight in April. The horses who win Nationals off attractive marks tend to be the ones placed in autumn handicaps, not the ones winning them.

One more point of caution is ground. Irish September cards are usually run on good to soft or yielding. Aintree has been watered and riding good to soft on National day in recent years. Autumn soft-ground form travels less well than people assume.

The names to keep

Four horses who completed the 2026 National are young enough to come back. These are Iroko, (2nd as an 8 year old), Jordans (3rd at 7), Johnnywho (4th at 9), and High Class Hero (5th at nine). They have already proved they get round Aintree, which is the hardest thing to prove. Their autumn reappearances, whenever they come, are the most informative runs of the next two months.

September diary