The Punchestown Festival is the pinnacle of the Irish National Hunt season.
It is held on what many consider to be one of the world's finest racecourses.
Over more than 150 years it has developed into a true festival in every sense of the word, with offices and schools closing up to enable the whole community to enjoy the spectacle and atmosphere.
Today, older traditions like Walking Sunday have been joined by more modern innovations such as Family Day and the shopping village.
In the lead up to this year's festival, which is gearing up to be as thrilling as ever, we take a look at five things you might not know about Punchestown Festival:
1. The very first meeting was hit by a hurricane
The inaugural race meeting of the Kildare Hunt Club was on 1 April 1850.
This one day event was nothing like the spectacle of today, and the inauspicious start did nothing to predict its future success.
A violent storm, recorded by one journalist as "a perfect hurricane", combined with a lack of shelter, did not bode well.
It was, therefore, almost apt that the 100th anniversary meeting was also disrupted by severe weather: in 1950, racing was postponed due to a snow storm.
2. The Punchestown Festival of 1863 inspired a poem
There were a full 55 verses to the poem, with plenty name dropping of the local celebrities of the day, like Lord Naas and the Baron de Robeck.
"A loud hurrah for Ireland, boys; and louder for Kildare; and loudest of all for Punchestown; for I know you all are there".
3. 1,500 farmers petitioned to save the festival in 1919
In the dark, early days of the Troubles, Kildare Hunt Club actually proposed to abandon the race meeting permanently.
However, 1,500 farmers signed a petition demanding the races to be continued, helping to secure the future of the festival.
4. Punchestown is also a music festival capital
It's often said that Punchestown is Ireland's Cheltenham, but to non-racegoers it could equally be defined as its Glastonbury.
The racecourse has hosted many music festivals, such as Creamfields, Witness and Oxegen, along with huge shows by the likes of rapper Eminem and rock legends AC/DC and Bon Jovi.
5. The 1963 Gold Cup winner still resides in Kildare
The famous Irish thoroughbred racehorse Arkle triumphed in the Punchestown Gold Cup in 1963, and enjoyed many more victories in Cheltenham and elsewhere.
This racing superstar, it was widely claimed, gained his immense strength from two pints of Guinness a day.
He died in 1970 but you don't have to go far to see him. His skeleton is preserved and on display just over ten miles from Punchestown, at the Irish National Stud.
Fans and aficionados of the Punchestown Festival will most likely already know all these facts, and many more tales and legends.
But, there are still some things every racegoer, from the veteran to the novice, will want to know and that's where to get the best odds, and where to bet on Punchestown Festival 2015 .
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