Dundalk is to hold four extra meetings early in 2021 in a bid to alleviate the recent high level of entries.

Horse Racing Ireland has responded to the significant number of horses being balloted out of races at each of the last three fixtures.

The additional meetings at the County Louth track are scheduled for January 11 and 20, February 1 and 17.

These are all scheduled for the afternoon, with the exception of January 20 which is an evening card.

HRI director of racing Jason Morris said: “We have had representations from the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, the Restricted Trainers Association and the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners, all of whom have expressed serious concern.

“We are therefore pleased to be able to provide these additional opportunities during January and February to augment the existing programme. “We envisage scheduling four or five races at each of these new meetings to allow for potential divides of multiple races to create eight-race cards at the additional fixtures. This approach has worked well in the past.”