Top Owners to Watch at the 2025 Galway Races The Galway Races hold a special place in the hearts of the Irish racing community, of that there is little doubt. The seven-day jamboree at Ballybrit is a landmark to the good times — summer sun (mostly), big crowds, holidays and lots of merriment in one of Ireland's most popular destination cities — the Galway Races brings that buzz to the more than 140,000 expected to go through the turnstiles. For some, Galway is a mecca, a race meeting with more to it than most. We're taking a look at some owners that fall into that category that could be worth keeping an eye on at the 2025 Galway Races. talkSPORT Betting Offer If you already have a talkSPORT BET account, check out more of the best betting sites and online casinos Pearse and Annette Mee The emerald green and mauve half silks of Pearse and Annette Mee are recognisable to followers of racing in Ireland, with winners sent out down the years by the likes of Willie Mullins, Henry de Bromhead, Shark Hanlon, John Kiely and Emmet Mullins. Software engineer and Galway businessman Pearse Mee, whose fortune has been tagged at €139m by the Sunday Times Rich List in the past, adores Ballybrit like nowhere else. The likes of Beat Hollow, Zero Ten, St Stephens Green, Hallowed Star, Merlin Giant, Teed Up and This Songisforyou have all been winners at the Galway Races in recent years for the Mee's. Perhaps a tad bizarrely, the most talented horse they ever owned, Hidden Cyclone, was unable to win at Galway at all, his best being a silver medal in the 2016 Galway Hurdle for the Shark and David Mullins. This despite being victorious on 17 occasions and claiming six graded prizes. Current stars like Arctic Gale, Sea Music, Enfranchise and Toll Stone — who ran a good race in the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham in November for trainer Emmet Mullins — could be contenders at Ballybrit this summer for an ownership that regard Galway's Summer Festival as their Olympics. JP McManus One of the great benefactors of racing both in Britain and Ireland, there are few major meetings at home or in the UK where the famous green and gold silks of JP McManus are not prevalent. That holds true at Ballybrit, where the Limerick native has won the Galway Plate seven times in the past, most recently when Early Doors scored under Mark Walsh for trainer Joseph O'Brien in 2020. McManus operates his team out of many different holdings, supporting a large party of trainers across Britain and Ireland, and has been known to count as many as seven contenders in a field for Galway Plate glory. McManus won his first Galway Hurdle in 2014 when the Tony Martin-trained Thomas Edison came home in front under AP McCoy in what proved his last outing at Ballybrit. Tigris River for Joseph O'Brien and Barry Geraghty added a second success in 2017. Look out for the green and gold hoops at the Galway Races in 2025 — they will appear regularly. Gerard O'Leary's Lance Bloodstock Limited Lance Bloodstock Limited, under the auspices of owner-trainer Gerard O'Leary, might not have the firepower of a JP McManus, but the operation has proved very capable of finding winners. Three of those winners have come at Ballybrit over the last five seasons, all the more impressive given they have come from just four runners over jumps at the Corribside layout, seeing the operation boast a level stakes profit of +13.72 from Galway runners over jumps in that time. O'Leary has plenty of Flat runners too, with the likes of Jabbar, Local Lad, Star Mind and Dumb Love all possible contenders at the Galway Races.
