Galway is again full to capacity this week as the city’s festival season switched seamlessly from arts to horses – and the Races took the baton from the Arts Festival after two weeks of record numbers.

Ballybrit will reach its zenith today with Ladies Day and the annual Guinness Hurdle – Diageo’s 60th year of partnership with the Galway Races – which will draw the biggest crowd of the week after yesterday’s spectacular Galway Plate Day.

There were 18,472 crossing the turnstiles on the opening day, up almost 1,400 on the same day in 2024 while 13,306 turned out for the second evening of racing, down by just 350.

More than 130,000 are expected to have flocked to Ballybrit by the time the Festival programme wraps up on Sunday with the Mad Hatters Family Fun Day – on top of over 450,000 who enjoyed the most successful Galway International Arts Festival in years.

This year’s Festival of Racing features around 800 horses in 53 races worth €2.171 million and with record prize money for both Plate and Hurdle; each of those is worth €270,000.

Off course, more than 70 pints will be sold as well as over 5,000 bottles of wine and champagne and 70,000 meals for punters who will also enjoy 50 live music acts at Ballybrit.

Caption: Taking cover from the rain at the Galway Races at Ballybrit. Photo: Iain McDonald

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