Punchestown 5-day crowd exceeds 100,000 Final figures for the five-day Festival make pleasant reading for the Punchestown executive with the total attendance for the week exceeding 100,000 for only the second time in the meetings history. Punchestown went to a five-day fixture at the pinnacle of the “Celtic Tiger” in 2008 when over 105,000 racegoers passed through the turnstiles but the magic six-figure tally was not preached since. However this year’s total attendance of 101,745 is up over 10,000 on last year, although the meeting was badly affected by wet and windy weather in 2012. A fairer comparison would be with 2011 when the figure was 95,061. Once again Ladies Day on Friday proved the most popular with 26,360 in attendance, although this was 859 down on last year. The presence of Sprinter Sacre on Tuesday obviously proved a big attraction, with the opening day crowd up over 4,000 at 18,607. Comparing betting figures with 12 months ago is also rather erroneous as nine races were cancelled last year due to waterlogging. The total amount bet with the bookmakers this week was €6,089,463, with all five days showing an increase on last year. Thursday and Friday were the two big days in the ring with over €1.4m bet on both days. The Tote also enjoyed a healthy week with a total aggregate over the five days of €3,630,956. Leading rails bookmaker Brian Graham was happy with the weeks trade saying, “I thought Tuesday and Wednesday was disappointing overall for business but Friday was incredible and Saturday has also been very good. “The weather has a big effect and, if you look back in general over the past year or so, the Festivals at Punchestown, Galway, Listowel and Derby Day at the Curragh all had terrible weather. “There were very few big bets this week but business was very steady, and overall it’s been a good week for trade in the ring. Results have not been that great for me but I was happy with our ticket numbers. Overall it’s encouraging.”
