WE’RE well in front after four days. I have four premier pitches at Galway – two on the rails and two in the Mayor’s Garden, and every day so far has been a winning one.

The buzz is back, maybe not at peak levels, but the town looks jammed every evening. I’ve had a couple of drinks but, to be honest, you’re too tired for any more after a day on your feet and then two hours balancing the books.

Thursday started with another J.P. McManus winner in Tesseract (8/1 into 7/1) but it was a good result for us. His stable companion Oathkeeper (4/1) fell and would have been a loser for us, along with runner-up Dont Tell No One (13/2).

Rathvinden went off 7/2 co-favourite in the next but somehow we escaped it. The other co-favourites - we laid €1,000 each-way on Don’t Touch It and Townshend – were the ones backed with us. It was a small winning race for us.

Remarkable Lady (16/1) was a good result for us and so were the placings in this 18-runner handicap. In the ‘Garden’ the stakes are small but you issue a lot of tickets. It’s a social crowd down there and I have rarely seen any trouble.

Sometimes a novice punter will give you funny looks if there’s a Rule 4 deduction from their winnings and you’re trying to explain it to them at a busy time. I’ve seen it turn a little bit nasty but it hasn’t happened to me and I didn’t hear of any aggro this week.

Music Box was a stinking result in the listed race. She was well-backed at 4/1. I wanted to lay the Dermot Weld runner Raymonda but I found it hard to ‘get’ his horses all week.

The novice hurdle won by Oakly was one of the best results of the week for bookmakers. Any time you get a 5/6 favourite (Lac Kivu) and two 4/1 shots beaten in a six-runner race is a screamer.

It’s been a brilliant week for us but the two big races, the Plate and Hurdle, went against us. Tigris River was strongly supported (6/1-5/1) and the placed horses – Swamp Fox, Airlie Beach and even Joey Sasa – were backed too. I’m not crying though – just saying!

The rain came during the Hurdle and punters scarpered. The bad weather particularly affects the ‘Garden’.

We had a one-horse book in the 12-furlong handicap. Camlann would have been a big loser for us and he looked likely to win before being collared in the closing stages by Andratx (8/1). A winning race.

The last was a good betting race but a loser for us. The winner Dayna Moss was backed from 11/4 to 7/4. I laid €11,000 to €4,000 and a further €7,000 to €4,000. But it wasn’t a disaster. With our four pitches the turnover is strong.

When you have turnover, you can move money around and there is no excuse for not limiting your potential losses.

Betting at Goodwood hasn’t been as popular with us this year. I don’t know why. We laid Winter heavily at evens on Thursday and that was a bad result. Overall the results from Goodwood have been favourable though.