€6 Million Development Of Galway Racecourse Galway Races is an extremely popular race meeting that takes place at Ballybrit Racecourse on the outskirts of Galway city each summer. It’s actually one of the longest meetings held in Europe as it runs for seven consecutive days and it never fails to attract large numbers of visitors both from home and abroad. The festival begins on the last Monday in July, with the Wednesday and Thursday being the two busiest days of the week. On Wednesday the Galway Plate takes place, a National Hunt chase over 2 miles, 6 and a half furlongs. Thursday is the traditional Ladies Day as well as when the Galway Hurdle is run, the richest handicap race in the National Hunt calendar. The seven-day Galway Races festival attracts in the region of one hundred and forty thousand people each year and sees many millions of euros in bets. This year however saw a slight drop in the overall physical attendance by over 1,000 people based on last year’s numbers. The bookmakers' turnover also felt a hit as they were down by over €600,000 based on the previous year. The Tote also suffered a fall in turnover close to €500,000. For some it may be a slight concern to see the betting turnover and attendances down. Bookmakers showed their figures to be down €641,034 from €7,973,927 last year to €7,232,893 this year. The Tote figures saw a €458,141 decrease. In 2016 the Tote figure stood at €6,675,670 and this year it finished at €6,217,529. In spite of this, Sportingbet, the online bookmaker, confirmed that their betting over the course of the festival was very strong and turnover was up over the 7 days of the festival. Some have put the drop in on-course betting down to a lot of long-priced winners over the course of the week. Another reason why figures were down, both in betting and attendance, could have been due to Galway taking on Tipperary in the All Ireland hurling semi-final on the Sunday. This was reflected in that the Tote were actually 2% up on last year at the end of Saturday’s trading, to then be down heavily at the festival close. The All Ireland hurling semi-final would be a big draw for many local people, so some will have opted to go to Croke Park instead. Despite the slight fall in attendances the racecourse is currently undergoing a €6 million redevelopment. The improvements will aim to improve the experience of regular race goers and attract some new ones. There will be an improved Tote betting hall as well as an upgraded Ladbrokes shop, so those who like a bet will definitely have a better customer experience when attending in the future. There will also be new food outlets and there are plans to replace the temporary champagne bar with a permanent one that overlooks the parade ring. The new facilities are due to be completed ahead of the 2018 summer festival which begins on Monday 31st July next year and promise to be a great addition to an already marvelous venue for horse racing.
