There are two feature events on Ladies' Day at Ballybrit, and they tend to overlap. At 3.45 p.m. yesterday the PA was announcing that the runners were at the start for the Galway Hurdle.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the racecourse, the white flag was raised for the Best Dressed Person competition, as it is now known.
Not all the runners were at the start for this one, however. Festival Thursday draws the biggest crowd of the week, and the biggest traffic jam. Even halfway through yesterday's card, vehicles were still being directed to parking spaces in remote corners of the course, from where an occasional straggler emerged, tip-toeing urgently through the muck, clutching her hat and her disappearing hopes of glory.
In keeping with the official gender neutrality of the fashion competition, a man qualified for the judges' short-list. But he was a 20-1 shot (literally - the other 20 nominations were women). And when the hard questions were asked of his cream linen suit, it was found wanting.
Out on the track, by contrast, the Hurdle was turning into one for the boys. Certainly The Boys of Fair Hill (or The Persons of Fair Hill as it will eventually be renamed) must have featured in the celebrations last night, after Sabadilla won for a Cork triumvirate, including an official Fair Hill Boy, John Hyde.
Rounding off an all-Cork triumph, the 14-1 shot was ridden and trained by Rathcormac's Pat Verling, who survived a severe reprimand from the stewards for a barging incident at the last hurdle.
There were no barging incidents in the Best Dressed Person competition, although in the hat section - as you'd expect on a windy day - feathers flew.
But in the sartorial equivalent of Pat Verling's achievement, the top prize of a €3,000 shopping voucher went to the owner of a Galway boutique who had prepared the winning outfit from the shop's collection and then worn it herself.
Unlike Verling, Niamh O'Donovan even got to wear her own colours, romping to victory in a black, three-quarter-length dress topped off with a leaf-shaped hat.
She held off the challenge of Karen Grenham from Sligo, whose "cerise pink and vibrant orange" outfit had triumphed at four weddings this summer, but fell just short of victory in the big one. Her consolation was €1,500. In the Best Hat competition, 20-year-old student Louise Allen from Slane held on to her feathers and took the €1,500 prize by a head.
Although three full days remain, the festival peaked last night, and helicopters were bumper to bumper on all air routes out of Ballybrit.
The Fianna Fáil catering operation continues today, in wind-down mode. But the Taoiseach left Galway early yesterday and will have a few days' holiday in Kerry with his daughter, Cecelia, before the wedding of his other daughter, Georgina, in France.
Yesterday's crowd bet an Irish one-day record of €1.74 million on the Tote, and another €2.86 million with the bookies. On a day when few favourites obliged, they didn't get much of it back. The white flag was raised by many of those leaving the racecourse last night. And this evening's meeting is likely to be a much more local affair, as the festival is handed back to the people of Galway.