RACING: TYPICAL OF Ireland's 2009 summer, ground conditions for the start of the Galway Festival will be testing when the world-famous race meeting begins this evening. But Irish racing's rulers are fervently hoping the week will end up confounding any economic gloom-merchants.
The festival’s traditional role as a barometer of financial wellbeing in Ireland generally will take place this time against a backdrop of half-yearly statistics that show dramatic decreases in practically all of Irish racing’s vital signs, but especially in betting and attendances.
Figures released by Horse Racing Ireland show a 17 per cent drop in crowds for the first half of 2009, while turnover for on-course bookmakers in the same period fell 22 per cent to just over €64 million.
Sponsorship levels have dipped dramatically by 25 per cent, while prizemoney has fallen by 14 per cent. The number of horses in training is also down, while looming in the background is the An Bord Snip recommendation to Government that a further €17 million be taken off the Horse and Greyhound Fund.
Against such a background not many are expecting anything like a repeat of the modern attendance record for an Irish race meeting which stands at the 52,000 set on the fourth day of Galway in 2005.
Betting figures at the festival have also been on the slide in recent years, but the next seven days will still provide almost 15 per cent of on-course turnover for the entire year and the Galway authorities report a “surge” in ticket sales in the last week.
“There has been a surge in bookings here and some hotels in Galway report the same thing. Some of them are booked out for the Monday night, which is something that has never happened in Galway before,” racecourse manager John Moloney said yesterday.
“We are getting different sorts of people buying tickets. There aren’t as many big companies buying, such as developers or banks or the service industries in general. Our hospitality is down 35 per cent. But we are definitely getting a different kind of client. We might not get record crowds but it should still be very good,” he added.
Ticket prices have been kept at 2007 levels, with €30 for Wednesday and Thursday, and €25 admission on Tuesday and Friday. Entry to the other three days costs €20.
Ground conditions at Galway yesterday were officially “soft to heavy” and heavy in places.
Moloney reported: “It is currently very windy here and if that keeps up the ground could be reasonable enough. I have often seen it heavy here at the start of the week and then dry up. But Wednesday looks as if it is going to be a bad day.”
Wednesday’s highlight is the William Hill Galway Plate and the big-race sponsors rate the English-trained Roby De Cimbre a 4 to 1 favourite for the summer steeplechase feature. The horse represents the Ruby Walsh-Paul Nicholls team which won the Plate in 2008 with Oslot.
The champion jockey is a 1 to 2 to retain his leading National Hunt rider award at the festival. His flat colleague, Pat Smullen, is an even shorter favourite to retain his Galway crown at 1 to 5.
This evening’s feature race is the €75,000 Carlton Galway City Handicap over two miles, but many will rely on “Galway King” Dermot Weld, who looks like having the favourite for the two-year-old maiden, Stunning View.
It is a race that the legendary trainer has won 18 times and Weld has already been crowned champion trainer at Galway a remarkable 23 times.
