Galway Races off to a flyer as sun shines and crowds are up

Date Published: 30-Jul-2012

 By Dara Bradley

The Galway Summer Racing Festival has got off to a flyer with attendances on the opening night of the 2012 meeting boosted by glorious sunshine.

Galway Racecourse confirmed that 17,710 clicked through the turnstiles on Monday’s evening meeting, an increase of 140 on last year’s attendance of 17,570.

This year’s figure includes children under the age of sixteen, who were admitted free this year if accompanied by an adult.

For comparison, in 2009 as the recession really began to bite, just 17,342 attended on the Monday, which was a drop of more than 3,000 customers compared with the previous year, 2008.

By Sunday, 150,000 are expected to have attended the 2012 festival, which is worth up to €60 million to the local economy.

Galway specialist Dermot Weld lived up to his reputation as the King of Ballybrit on the opening day as well, landing three out of the seven races on Monday’s card, including the feature race.

The Weld and Ruby Walsh partnership landed the first of 52 races of the seven day festival on the 9/4 shot Train of Thought, while Thunder Mountain also romped home for Weld in the maiden under jockey Pat Smullen.

Weld was full of praise for amateur rider Jane Mangan who landed him the feature €70,000 handicap on outsider Midnight Music, an 11/1 chance.

All seven races on yesterday’s card were sponsored by Galway’s leading hotels: Carlton Hotel, Radisson Blu, Galway Bay Hotel, Hotel Meyrick, the g Hotel, Claregalway Hotel, Clayton Hotel, Galway Oyster Hotel and the Pillo Hotel.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel