Ladies' Day comes early to Galway

Monday is known as 'Galway night', but it seemed half the island arrived in Ballybrit yesterday, as race cards sold out in 30 minutes, writes LORNA SIGGINS

CRYOTHERAPY is that most popular of treatments that jockeys find very useful after an injury . . . jockeys such as Davy Russell,who broke an ankle last month on Kerry’s Listowel track.

Russell survived sub-zero temperatures in his swimming shorts just so he could make it to Ballybrit, where the crowds were such last night that race cards had sold out within the first half hour.

However, for many potential visitors to this week’s Galway racing festival, the main challenge will be surviving a seriously sulphurous atmosphere. Not too sulphurous, mind, for there’s no longer a Fianna Fáil “tint” – although there’s talk of a campaign to bring it back.

Fine Gael’s version of a fundraiser is very different. Later this week – Ladies’ Day, to be precise – a local constituency “buster night” at the Galway Greyhound Stadium will coincide with a contest for “best ass” run by the North Galway Hunt. The hunt is reviving the donkey derby, which was last held in the Claddagh some 30 years ago.

Top National Hunt jockeys have been booked, including Paul Carberry, Davy Condon, Robbie Power, Roger Loughran and Barry Geraghty, and the donkeys, bearing race names such as “the Rahoon Slasher” are “in training”, according to North Galway Hunt supporters chairwoman Linda Geraghty (no relation).

"They'll parade to the music of The Magnificent Seven, but we don't anticipate a photo finish. My prayer is that they will all run in a forward direction, and eventually cross the line," she said yesterday.

A bit like Fine Gael? “Don’t be too busy with that pen of yours,” was her response.

Jockey Barry Geraghty, meanwhile, took a tumble in yesterday evening’s first race, on the unfortunately named Cabernet Sauvignon. The novice hurdle was won by the Dermot Weld-trained Force of Habit, on odds of 5-1.

It augured well for Mr Weld, known as the “Galway specialist” , who has saddled over 200 winners at the Ballybrit summer festival.

Attendance at race week last year fell by 18 per cent on 2008,with 143,41 people recorded through the turnstiles – a quarter of those reported at the Volvo Ocean Race stopover earlier that summer in the city. Bookmaker turnover also fell last year by just over 26 per cent on the previous year.

However, race course manager John Moloney points out that admission prices have been retained at 2007 levels, with special deals for tickets for the entire seven days.

And, though Monday evening is normally a “Galway night”, it seemed yesterday as if half of the island had arrived early, with large numbers sporting silk and satin, fascinators and St Tropez tans, as if for Ladies’ Day – and that was just the women.

That other barometer of largesse and excess, the control tower at Galway airport, is also predicting a busy week ahead.

“We have 20 aircraft registered to run shuttle helicopter flights for the festival,” said Tony Gibson, Galway air traffic controller. Wednesday and Thursday will be “particularly active”, he added.

Much will depend on weather, but it is expected to be reasonable, with slightly cooler temperatures and sunshine in between showers. Boylesports has already released odds on the winning look for Thursday. It believes the most likely Ladies’ Day winner will be a “girl under 30” from Dublin, wearing a hat with brown hair in a cream dress. Blue rinses are, unfortunately, rated at 50-1.

The Garda has put in a new traffic management plan, due to the completion of the M6 motorway, and Mill Street headquarters confirmed yesterday that it had “sufficient resources” to monitor any illicit activity, ranging from pickpocketing to prostitution rings.

“Street workers” tend to operate in the county area, and tend to be “very mobile”, according to a Garda spokesman. It is aware that a number of these women may be foreign nationals who have been caught in exploitative situations. Ruhama, which helps women affected, believes men availing of such services should be named and shamed.

Under the new traffic management plan, visitors arriving from the M6 should follow the red route for the tunnel entrance, the blue route for the venue entrance (which requires leaving the motorway at exit 19 at Oranmore) or the green route for the Tuam road entrance on the N17.

There is speculation that the motorway’s completion means shrewd punters may avoid the city, and overpriced hotels, altogether – commuting from the midlands and east and back in barely a blink of an eye . . . or lash of a tail.