Sport is often about more than what happens on the pitch or the track and so it is at Galway during Race Week.
While young professionals plying their trade in London or Paris will for the most part come home for Christmas, if you’re from the West then this is the time for renewing old acquaintances, and putting on your party gear.
The attendance at last night’s opening fixture of the seven day festival was five per cent up on last year at 18,938. That’s an attendance that would better almost every other race meeting in the country and likely the first number in a total attendance over the week that will likely burst through 150,000.
There were those who were there for the racing, those for the fashion and those for other delights. It is perhaps notable that Guinness recently renewed a sponsorship that will shortly stretch past 50 years.
The appeal of the races crosses sporting boundaries as well. Rugby’s finest took time out from pre season training last night as Conor Murray, Fergus McFadden, Robbie Henshaw and Stephen Ferris set aside provincial jerseys and gathered to support their slightly smaller sporting brothers and sisters.
The racing continues today at Ballybrit.
