This summer the festival meetings appear to be piling in on top of us at an ever faster rate. Today sees the final session at Tramore and next Tuesday Tralee, with its six-day meeting tied in with the Rose competition, will be getting under way. According to Pat Crean, the prizemoney will be a record £406,500 and this in turn is up more than £100,000 in two years.

When Tramore puts on its best quality flat race of the week, the Noel Griffin Memorial Amateur Handicap, all it can muster is six runners. If, on the other other hand, it had been a 0-50 affair they would have been ballotting out surplus declarations.

Akasian, who tried to make all the running in the Guinness Galway Hurdle, only surrendered the lead after the second-last flight and still finished in seventh place, beaten half a dozen lengths by Perugino Diamond. With a 6lb weight differential Akasian can turn the tables.

In seven runs on the flat this year, Kate Emily has won twice and been placed five times. Such a fine record of consistency is proof that Pat Flynn's stable in back on song, and Kate Emily, who had a couple of runs as a weak and immature juvenile hurdler, is napped to beat Charlie Swan's mount, Mandalink, in the McDonald Bros Maiden Hurdle.

Swan, wearing his trainer's hat, may win the Commercial Refrigeration Maiden. She was asked to give 21lb to Wonder Bell in a valuable fillies handicap at the Cork bank holiday meeting and finished in second place, beaten three and a half lengths. Normally it is hard to go against the three-year-olds in these maiden events but they are of a modest calibre.

Neutron, who won twice over a mile as a two-year-old, has the scope to make a decent juvenile hurdler, an opinion that will be put to the test in the Frank Gillane Memorial.

Mister Chippy had apparently lost all semblance of his former ability but after a lengthy unplaced sequence, he finally recovered some of his former talent at Galway when he was third in a big handicap hurdle won by Bannow Bay.

Barring a strong market lead for the Pat Hughes-trained Kingstanding, Mister Chippy should record his first victory since providing a 25 to 1 turn-up at Naas in October 1998.