The Galway Races is as much a state of mind as an elite sporting event, which is a big part of the magic.
You couldn’t move around Galway City or around the Bay towards Oranmore yesterday without bumping into the finery on display for the annual trip to Ladies’ Day.
And it’s not just the women who are dressed up to the nines.
Racing has developed a great niche for itself as a playground for being young and looking fine.
The course at Ballybritt is great as a racing venue with a tight track visible to everyone, everyone that is in or in front of the stands. For many during race Week, though, they might not get to see many a horse at all.
They’ll be betting as much on colours, names and luck numbers as on a detailed study of the form and with only one favourite winning on Galway Hurdle Day and others coming home at 16/1, 25/1 and 200/1, who’s to say they are wrong.
The big race, the Guinness Galway Hurdle, has a special place in my heart. My Grandfather Jack Barrett rode the winner of it in 1939 on a horse called Honours Choice.
JJ Slevin was the jockey on board yesterday, and who knows, maybe his own descendants in decades to come will have as fond a memory.\
Galway Races had a dozen pairs of hands across social media yesterday, and the output was prodigious. The sun shone, and the drink flowed as the county and everyone, it seems, who can lay claim to a smidge of Galway DNA wanted to be there.
It really is an outing that everyone should experience at least once in a lifetime. If next year’s is yours then I’ll look forward to seeing you there.
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