The betting and the boozing, the racing and the raving, were still going strong in Galway last night but the week-long party is drawing to an end.
There is racing at Ballybrit today and tomorrow, although many people headed home yesterday.
"I'd love to stay to Sunday but the wife would kill me if I did. I've been down here since Tuesday so I better go back and show my face," said Eamon Doherty from Donegal.
"I've had a great time but I'm glad to be going home. I don't think my wallet or my liver could take another day," said his friend, Martin Horan. As they left in cars, buses and trains, no one had a bad word to say about the racing festival.
"It's bloody brilliant," said John Lyons from Galway, "and it's great to have so many people from all over the country in our city."
In the Galway Hat Shop, assistants Audrey Moore and Orlaith Carr said that while they had "great craic" their feet were "very, very sore".
"It's been a crazy week," said shop owner, Sandra Divilly. "We sold about 300 hats. It's the best week of the year for us. I know the staff are tired but I'm looking forward to Galway 2002 already."
It will be hard to beat 2001. All sorts of records were broken including that for crowd attendance. A total of 38,641 people were at the track on Thursday. "This year has been very special because of the foot-and-mouth," said farmer Thomas Flynn. "People were dying for a week of decent racing since Cheltenham was cancelled."
The big races, the Galway Plate and the Guinness Handicap Hurdle, might have been over but Ballybrit was still packed last night.
The feature race was the £29,250 Guinness Extra Stout Handicap which was won by the John Oxx-trained Taraza. She had flopped, when a warm favourite at the Curragh in June, but Ballybrit proved more to her liking. She led from three furlongs out and came home at 13/2.
But the Galway festival is about much more than racing. Last night the bars in Quay Street were buzzing, a session was in full swing in the city's newest and most luxurious hotel, the Radisson, and hundreds of people gathered in the evening sunshine in Eyre Square to savour what's left of the party.