Weld adds to week of records

It was appropriate that the last winner of this year's Galway festival was trained by Dermot Weld, because it allows even more scope to use the word "record" in connection with Irish racing's most remarkable week.

Weld trained 10 winners for the fourth time in his career at Galway, and once again all betting and attendance records were broken.

Yesterday's bookmaker turnover of £1,284,188 was over £250,00 down on the corresponding day last year, and paled in comparison with Wednesday's bookie figure of close on £2.5 million. But it still meant the amount bet with the bookmakers for the week totalled £11,919,682.

It was also a record-breaker for the Tote. The £542,771 aggregate bet yesterday resulted in the Tote authorities returning a total figure of £5,378,146.

Crowd figures fluctuated some days. Saturday's 14,900 was down almost 2,500 on last year, but could be accounted for by some bad weather and the All-Ireland football quarter-final between Galway and Roscommon.

On Thursday, however, a record 38,641 attended Ballybrit, and yesterday's crowd of 16,166 meant a total of 161,926 paid through the gates during the week.

Not surprisingly, Weld was once again the leading trainer at Galway and his stable jockey, Pat Smullen, proved his mastery of the tricky track with six winners. The other training success story was Pat Hughes whose good week was kicked off by Gamekeeper's 20 to 1 repeat in Monday's GPT Handicap.

Gold Chaser had also come up trumps for the former champion handler in the £55,000 Eircell Handicap, after starting 9 to 4 joint favourite with his unplaced stablemate, the top-weight Social Harmony.

Gordon Power was partnering his first winner for the Weld stable as Gold Chaser won for the third time around Galway in the colours of English-based owner Mike Watt, landing some hefty wagers in the process.

Conor O'Dwyer, who won the Galway Plate on Grimes last Wednesday, rewarded his followers with a double aboard Maiden Over (14 to 1) and U Jump I Jump (5 to 1).

Norman Williamson made it three winners for the week as Jack Duggan justified favouritism in the Eircell Maiden Hurdle, but he still lost out by one winner to Charlie Swan in the race to be leading jumps jockey.

Swan booted home another well-supported favourite, Rapid Deployment, in division one of the High Speed Data Handicap Hurdle.

At Chester, Kevin Darley celebrated his 41st birthday in style with three superb front-running rides on Paul Cole's trio of Investor, Yorkshire and Octavius Caesar, recording a 19-1 treble.

And the day was even better for the Whatcombe handler, who completed a 118-1 four-timer when his Cala di Volpe obliged down at Newbury.

A delighted Darley said: "It has been a good week, I was leading jockey at Goodwood with four winners - it is nice to have even one down there.