Ground continues to dry as Festival begins

The seven day extravaganza that is the Galway Racing Festival gets underway at 4pm in Ballybrit this afternoon, and the going has dried out further overnight with the ground currently described as good to yielding.

The ground was soft to heavy in the middle of last week but had improved to yielding (yielding to soft in places) by declaration time yesterday morning.

The highlight on today's seven race mixed card is the Carlton Hotel Galway City Handicap, a €70,000 two miles event for amateur riders, and a wide open field of 20 are due to go to post at 5.35pm.

The forecast is for a dry day today, with the prospect of some showers tonight and tomorrow.