Another successful week at Ballybrit The seven-day Galway Festival drew to a close this afternoon with another large attendance of 14,129 (up 889 on the same day last year) bringing the total crowd this week to 122,362 — an increase of 5,642 on last year’s Festival. The attendance was up on six of the seven days compared with last year despite some inclement weather during the week, with Thursday’s Ladies Day figure of 25,924 the highlight. On the track, Willie Mullins was crowned the leading trainer for an eighth successive year with ten winners over the week while Paul Townend (4 wins) and Dylan Browne McMonagle (5 wins) took the National Hunt and Flat jockey awards respectively. Galway CEO Michael Moloney was delighted with the week saying, “It’s been a successful week on a lot of fronts. We’ve had great crowds and racing and a great atmosphere here all week. “There is a massive team working here and everybody did a superb job. “We came into the week with 45mm of rain and we realigned the course on Monday morning to allow more room for Tuesday and Wednesday. We were worried about Wednesday with the amount of rain forecast but thankfully that didn’t come. “We had 28mm on Friday night and it’s been a huge effort by the team on the track. The course can take a significant amount of rain. “There is good prize money on offer and it’s good to have a nice spread of winners among different owners, trainers and jockeys. There has been some really good finishes right throughout the week and that certainly got the crowd going.” The competitive nature of the racing at Galway is illustrated by the fact that no owner, trainer or jockey won more than one of the seven feature races throughout the week.
