GALWAY FESTIVAL 2018 [JULY 30th -- AUG 5th] -- DAY ONE MONDAY

DAY ONE - MONDAY

The 2018 Galway festival is a week long feast of racing, across both codes and a good excuse to visit one of the great Irish venues and surrounding area. 

The opening day actually doesn't start till the evening with the first race (Novice Hurdle) of the meeting due off at 5:20pm. The feature race tonight being the Connacht Hotel Handicap at 7:40pm. 

Once again this season we will continue to focus on the horses from trainer Dermot Weld and we will continue to track his progress this week though we might also offer one or two other selections in particular the feature races if no Weld runner is declared.

Going -- NH - Good             Flat - Yielding.

Weather Forecast -- A high of 16C with a chance of a few showers later. Suggest you take a mac ... or stay in the bars.

DAY ONE SELECTIONS;

6:25 - 7f Maiden (2yo).
THIRD WORLD  [6th 11/4].

7:05 - 7f Handicap
TASHMAN  [13th 11/2]. 

7:40 - 2m 179y Handicap. 
This is today's feature contest worth 59k euro and Dermot Weld doesn't have a runner here so will look around the 20 runners (excluding the reserves). Top weight CHELKAR [19th 9/2] is the best one of Willie Mullins trio here but will do well to concede weight all round in a decent field. Gordon Elliott runs the paid BRUTAL [20th 40/1] / BATTS ROCK [Non Runner] and the latter comes here looking for the hat-trick so is our win bet in this contest.

At a big price I think LE VAGABOND [18th 25/1] can go well again, is a regular place finisher including around here.  Well that was awful, finding the rear three finishers !! 

8.10 - 1m 4f 84y Handicap (3yo).
IMRANA  [7th 7/2].

8:40 - 2m 130y NH Flat Race.  

NEPTUNE  [3rd 11/2].

Racing, Guinness, Women, Great Craic ... Life is good.

Day One figures -- a bit of a blow out on the opening day, we have plenty more to see and do yet before the week is out. 

D Weld p/l for week       -4.00 pts
Overall week p/l to date  -7.00 pts


Results will appear here on Monday evening along with 'Day Two' to be published shortly, we are also racing at 'Glorious' Goodwood too this week starting on Tuesday, so two top class meetings to enjoy all week long.