With 150,000 racegoers raining down on the City of the Tribes, the Galway Races is the biggest sporting festival in Ireland every year. Here’s our well-meaning but probably futile guide to helping you end the week in profit.
1. It’s a marathon, not a sprint
If you’re one of those who’s in it for the long haul, there’s seven whole days of racing to get through between now and the finish. That’s 54 races, so there’s no need to go steaming in on Day 1. As professionals golfers are prone to say when the Majors come around, you can’t win it on Day 1 but you could lose it.
The same principals apply here. If you’re not careful with your betting bank, the whole lot could be frittered away even before the racing highlights come round on Wednesday and Thursday.
So guard your pot with your life. If not, you won’t be able to afford the beef rolls, never mind have enough juice left in the tank to enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend.
2. Follow Dermot Weld
It’s so obvious it can’t be true, can it? Weld is known as the King of Ballybrit, and for good reason. He routinely has his string in peak condition every year, and 2011 doesn’t look as if it’ll be much different.
Rather than just following him blind, though, you could always pick and choose your races. Or, to be more precise, race types. Weld has a strike rate of almost 50 per cent in two-year-old races, but the odds are often slight, so concentrate instead on races for horses aged four and over.
The Master of Rosewell House has saddled 41 such horses over the past five years, with eight of them coming home triumphant. That’s a 20 per cent strike-rate, but even better is that the odds are generally slightly longer, as these horses often take part in handicaps.
3. Avoid Jim Bolger in everything but two-year-old races
Bolger has been one of the top trainers in the country for what seems like generations, but for whatever reason, he just doesn’t seem to hit the jackpot around Ballybrit.
He has saddled just five winners at Galway (from 44 runners) over the past five years.
Delving a bit deeper shows that Bolger has had four two-year-old winners in that time, meaning he has won just one from 27 entries in non-two-year-old races since 2006. He’s a great trainer, but you can safely avoid him most of the time this week.
4. Joseph O’Brien has it sussed
Okay, he’s often getting his leg up on some of the best horses his legendary father Aidan has to offer, but there’s no doubt Joseph has come up with a way of getting the best out of a horse around the particular demands of Galway.
Last year was his first proper year riding the track – he had just one ride around Ballybrit before the start of the 2010 festival – and he finished the week with a mighty impressive strike rate of three winners from ten rides.
Added to that, he came up just short in second on another couple of occasions, so young Joseph – who turned 18 this summer and celebrated his first Classic success aboard Roderic O’Connor in the Irish 2000 Guineas in May – is one to keep on the right side of.
5. Have a go at a lively outsider in the Plate
The Galway Plate is one of the most historic races on the calendar, and it’s been difficult to predict over the past few years. Only Oslot and Grimes have won as favourites since 2001, while the average SP of the winner in that time is approximately 14/1, with Nearly A Moose (25/1), Finger Onthe Pulse (22/1), Rockholm Boy (20/1) and Ballyholland (16/1) all winning the big race.
It should also pay to concentrate on something towards the bottom of the weights – aim for a horse carrying 10st 5lbs or less. Trainer John Kiely has been aiming high with Head of the Posse so far, saddling him to win a Grade 3 over fences at Galway last October, and he could be worth taking a chance on at current odds of around 14/1.
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