RACING Galway Festival preview: The first battalions of the estimated 200,000 people attending this week's Galway Festival will no doubt have fun on their minds tonight but the relative triviality of it all will also be sorely felt.
Blue Corrig's scheduled appearance in the two-mile handicap hurdle will be a painfully solemn one as the grey horse will carry the colours of owner Dick Forristal who was killed at his home near Tramore on Thursday.
The racing community also lost another stalwart over the weekend as the former champion amateur rider, and renowned point-to-point trainer, PP Hogan, died on Saturday evening.
Hogan, who also purchased the Arc de Triomphe winner Detroit, was 83.
In comparison, teasing out the winner of the opening day feature, the GPT Handicap, means nothing but racing remains a relentlessly forward-looking game at the best of times and it is rarely more boisterously so than at Galway.
The scale of the festival now means that 1,500 people are employed to stage an event that will generate up to €30 million in betting turnover. In comparison the €1.7 million in prize-money almost seems piffling.
A €75,000 share of it though is on offer for the GPT which is one of the highlights of the year for amateur riders.
Last year Nina Carberry, the record breaking top lady rider in the country, came within a length and a half of winning it on the Dermot Weld-trained Le Leopard. The Weld horse is back for another crack at it and so is Carberry, but this time on Athlumney Lad who could be a value bet to emerge best.
Athlumney Lad was also here last year when winning the afore-mentioned handicap hurdle, but now that he tries the flat he will be attempting a distance he has never tried before on the level.
However, if the two-mile trip is a concern, then the forecast "good to firm" ground, with a dry outlook for the Galway area, is right up his street and there were also signs in his last start that he might just be coming back to something like his best.
That was a staying on fourth to Cloone River at the Curragh and Carberry is just the quiet, stylish rider to nurse Athlumney Lad into a challenging position.
Blue Away in contrast is assured at the distance and is sure to be fancied for the Pat Hughes team who won in 2003 with Rapid Deployment and twice with Gamekeeper (2000-01).
Another to consider must be Greenhall Rambler representing Pat Fahy who won with Quadco in 2002 while Sharadi is a cross-channel raider to examine.
In addition to Le Leopard, Dermot Weld will also run Lowlander as he tries to add to the memorable Spanner who he trained and rode to win this race three times in 1972-'73-'75.
Weld, the perennial leading trainer at Ballybrit, had a disappointing weekend with Grey Swallow flopping in the King George and Merger only managing to run sixth of eight in Saturday night's American Derby at Arlington Park in Chicago.
Famously, though, Weld has won this evening's seven-furlong maiden on 16 occasions, but significantly only twice in the last eight years. From a three-strong entry he has elected to rely on the Limerick runner-up Baynes Cross, but once more it may pay to look elsewhere.
Kevin Prendergast has won it twice in the last three years and has Camisado now, although he looks held on the formbook by Sandton City for whom Johnny Murtagh looks a significant jockey booking. Murtagh was on Violani who just held off Sandton City by a short head at Tipperary and Frank Ennis's colt shaped like a horse who would tackle the Ballybrit hill.
Murtagh is also an eye-catching booking in the mile and a half handicap for Battledress who won at Bath for Marcus Tregoning on his last start.
There wasn't much to like about the horse's head carriage that time, however, and down at the bottom of the handicap Torriani looks a better option now that he tackles a mile and a half for the first time.
Aidan O'Brien and Kieren Fallon are represented by the Wexford maiden winner Streets Of Gold but his breeding, by Sadler's Wells out of the double Oaks and St Leger winner User Friendly, doesn't suggest he will like the going on the quick side.
The Weld camp unveil an interesting newcomer in the bumper in Dasher Reilly, who will be ridden by Nina Carberry, and Ruby Walsh teams up with Kinger Rocks in the opening novice hurdle.
This mare trotted up by 20 lengths on the level at Bellewstown but a better option could be Charyan who was beaten on the flat at Limerick last time.
However, two previous bumper wins encouraged Christy Roche to describe her as the best he has had since Like-A-Butterfly.
Zeroberto, who won the novice event last year, is the Weld runner in the handicap hurdle, but Walsh is on Thunder Road in this and looks to have got it right.
Some areas of the country may have had to endure torrential rain yesterday but the ground at Galway will be "good to firm" this evening for the start of the seven-day festival. A course spokesman reported only 2mms of overnight rain on Saturday and little change in ground conditions is expected for at least the first half of the festival.
"We have had a lovely day today. There's been a bit of wind and good drying conditions and I don't think there is going to be much change from the good to firm description," said a Galway course spokesman yesterday.
He added that no watering has taken place since early last week and that good to firm ground is likely to be the norm for the week ahead.
"The long-range forecast is generally good with just a chance of a few showers. It will be mainly dry though," he said.
A crowd of up to 20,000 people is expected to attend day one of the festival with the GPT Qualified Riders Handicap the feature.
Paddy Power rate Ruby Walsh an 11 to 10 favourite to be the leading jumps jockey at the festival while Pat Smullen, who misses the first two days through suspension, is an 11 to 8 market leader to be the top jockey on the flat.
5.00 CHARYAN
5.35 THUNDER ROAD
6.10 SANDTON CITY (nap)
6.50 ATHLUMNEY LAD
7.25 DIAMONDS FOR LUCK
8.00 TORRIANI
8.35 DASHER REILLY
Double:
SANDTON CITY
and CHARYAN
