Galway Racecourse© Photo Healy Racing
The seven-day Galway Festival drew to a close this afternoon with the key indicators of attendance and betting both down on the week.
The total attendance for the week was 132,691, compared with 137,682 12 months ago. However a drop of about 5,000 was reasonable considering the wet weather on a number of days mid-week.
Today's crowd of 10,461 was up on last year (9,874) despite the counter attraction of the Galway v Clare hurling replay in Thurles.
The worrying trend of declining bookmakers’ turnover over the past decade shows no signs of coming to a halt.
The total money turned over in the ring was 6,340,530 euro as against 7,332,893 in 2017.
The Tote aggregate was also down about a million euro with a figure this year of 5,298,536 euro compared with 6,217,529.
Galway Manager Michael Moloney is more than satisfied with how the week has gone saying, “We had a great crowd here on Monday and we were obviously a bit affected by the weather on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but had a huge crowd of over 30,000 on Friday.
“We’ve had some great racing and a huge amount of runners. It’s the most runners I can remember with maximum fields in many races and some great finishes.
“It’s been a positive week and roll on now for our 150 year anniversary (in 2019).”
