Galway again raises the bar for racing’s premier festival

JUST when you think that the annual Galway Summer Racing Festival can’t get any better, the launch of this year’s seven-day meeting has again raised the bar for the country’s most popular racing fixture.

Increased prizemoney, enhanced facilities and new innovations were among the headline features of this year’s successful Galway festival launch which was held in the Dean Hotel, Dublin last Monday when top jockey Ruby Walsh confirmed his latest return from injury will coincide with the big Ballybrit meeting.

In a further boost for the marathon festival, the Tote revealed the signing of a new three-year deal to extend their sponsorship of the flagship Galway Plate steeplechase which is being moved to an evening time slot for the first time ever on Wednesday of race week.

In another positive development which is bound to add to the lure of the festival, the minimum value for any of the 52-races over the seven days has been raised by €2,000 to €17,000 – a figure which many tracks don’t even reach for their feature events on the racing calendar.

With the prize fund for the Guinness Galway Hurdle a whopping €300,000, the Galway Plate worth €250,000 and all the other five-day feature races offering a minimum value of €100,000, the total prizemoney for the festival will crash through the €2m barrier for the first time.

It’s no surprise that the financial benefits of leading a horse into the winners’ enclosure at Ballybrit continues to see an increasing number of racing’s top class flat, hurdlers and chasers heading to the festival – last year’s Galway Plate hero Balko Des Flos went on to land the Ryanair Chase at the Cheltenham festival last March

The fact that sponsors, also including Galway hotels and Colm Quinn BMW, continue to enthusiastically support the festival underlines the attractions of being associated with one of the country’s most iconic sporting events.

Advance ticket sales for the meeting which starts on Monday, July 30, are very strong, pacing ahead of last year’s figures, with corporate hospitality already sold out for the first five days of the festival, with only limited availability for the weekend action.

In an era where spectator comfort and facilities are integral to the success of any sporting occasion, the Galway Race Committee, under the Chairmanship of Peter Allen, and the racecourse’s General Manager, Michael Moloney, have again stepped up to the plate with the development of a new two-storey amenity building beside the parade ring.

Due to be officially opened on Galway Plate day, the impressive €6m development which replaces the old Tote building, will showcase a Champagne Bar on the top level, equipped with a mini grand piano, while the ground floor will feature a betting hall, coffee dock and more toilet facilities. The Wilson Lynch Building is named after the individual who donated the land to the people of Galway in 1869.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.