JUST when you think the drama of the Galway Festival is done for one year, another chapter lies in store. The appeal against Helvic Dream’s demotion to second in the Guinness Galway Hurdle is set to be held on Wednesday, and the outcome will be fascinating.

How will connections of Helvic Dream try to convince the panel the stewards were incorrect in their raceday decision? Noel Meade may have already set his stall out to some degree this week when confirming his appeal had been lodged.

“Despite what everyone seems to think, every video I look at seems to suggest that Jack [Kennedy, on Ndaawi] got every chance to win the race and didn’t go through with it as much as anything else,” Meade said at Sligo. “He was leaning on my lad as much as my lad was leaning on him.”

My gut feeling immediately after the pair flashed by the line together was that the result ought to have been changed, though whether the stewards would opt to do so in a €270,000 feature race like this was harder to predict. Even though every race should be treated on its own merits - regardless of stature - we don’t tend to see big-race results reversed in this jurisdiction. Duntle’s demotion in the 2012 Matron Stakes, with Chachamaidee upgraded to first, is one of the most recent major turnarounds in memory.

To their credit, I think the Galway stewards came to the right outcome, even if it was extremely tough for everyone involved with the terrific stalwart that is Helvic Dream. It might seem harsh on one level that the result was changed when Jack Kennedy never stopped riding in the straight, but failing to correct your mount in the closing stages of a tight finish is a little like a soccer player persistently tugging an opponent’s jersey inside the penalty area. It mightn’t be the most severe of fouls, but there is always a risk of being penalised for it when the margin - a head - is so tight.

Meade suggested Ndaawi didn’t go through with his effort, but I’d actually take a different view that the Earls family’s five-year-old showed plenty of courage not to back out of a situation that wasn’t comfortable for him at all late on. Another horse could have backed out of it much easier. Kennedy wasn’t shirking the sticky situation either. Just because he didn’t stop riding doesn’t mean he wasn’t suffering interference, but how the appeals panel assess the situation will be more important than anyone else’s view.

Without begrudging the success of the sport’s biggest operations, there’s certainly a charm to Galway sharing the love among a host of different connections on a week like we’ve just had.

Yes, Willie Mullins can often run riot at this meeting, and still struck with a four-timer, but the spread of winners was extremely balanced this year. Across 53 races, it was terrific to note that 33 different yards got on the scoresheet. In fact, no trainer had more than Gordon Elliott’s tally of five winners.

Ebony King provides Andy Slattery with a third winner of the week at Galway \ Healy Racing

It’s a feather in the cap of in-form handler Andy Slattery that he emerged from the week with a treble - the same number of winners as Aidan O’Brien, Joseph O’Brien, Gavin Cromwell and Jessica Harrington managed over the course of the seven days.

Peter Lawlor’s success, winning with both his runners at Ballybrit, was one of the stories of the week, while there were also Festival doubles for Ciaran Murphy, John McConnell and Emmet Mullins.

In the feature races, victories for Natalia Lupini with Dunum and Jarlath Fahey with Nans View made for excellent results too.

There ought to have been a pretty happy weighing room too in the west last week. A total of 40 different jockeys rode winners at this year’s Galway Festival, Jack Kennedy (four winners) crowned leading rider over jumps and Dylan Browne McMonagle (three winners) shading the flat title over Wayne Lordan (three winners). More of the same at other top meetings would be highly welcome under both codes.

If there was one slightly curious element involving the spread of yards among the winners at Ballybrit, though, it was the outcome to the Chanelle Pharma-backed Leading Trainer Award.

Despite Gordon Elliott having more winners than any other trainer during the week, he didn’t leave the west with the top trainer title. That went to Willie Mullins, who had one less winner than his long-standing rival but claimed the award through the points-based system that decides this competition.

Essentially, a winner results in five points, a second is worth three points and a third is worth one. Mullins had fewer winners (and fewer thirds) than Elliott, but his string of four seconds meant he finished well clear of the Cullentra team on a scoreline of 45 to 31.

I doubt Elliott will worry too much given he pulled off the Galway Hurdle-Galway Plate double - as well as plundering the €110,000 BoyleSports Handicap Hurdle with Winning Smut, a beginners’ chase with King Of Kingsfield and a conditions chase with Zanahiyr - but it seemed a bit strange that a stellar week like that didn’t lead to him crowned champion trainer for the meeting.

All in all, there is certainly positivity to be taken from some key metrics for the week at Ballybrit - with the overall crowd figure for the 2025 festival coming to 125,997. That is well up from last year’s total of 116,374.

To take another step back, this year’s figure is also ahead of Galway’s other post-Covid tallies of 122,362 (2023) and 116,720 (2022), while still being short of the pre-pandemic levels of 129,118 (2019), 132,691 (2018) and 137,682 (2017).

On a day-by-bay basis, attendances were actually marginally down for the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday cards compared to 12 months earlier. A strong end to the week - partially driven by a bumper Friday crowd of 26,234 (from 22,106 in 2024) - ensured the meeting finished in front of last year. There was a feel-good factor on the ground that was well captured through the track’s social media channels throughout the week. From presenter Alan Clarke’s countless number of interviews, to style and racing updates, it seemed as though you couldn’t open a social media platform last week without being hit with something Ballybrit-related, so hats off to the western marketing team, headed up by new commercial marketing manager Olivia Lynch Ward.

There were clear upward returns for both the Tote and on-course bookmakers last week too. The Tote aggregate for the week came in at €5,822,494 - quite the jump from €5,003,120 in 2024, even accounting for the larger crowd.

As for on-course layers, they saw a 17% increase in turnover compared to last year - an end-of-week tally of €7,743,895 (versus €6,620,254 in 2024). Given the nature of how quiet much of the mid-week action can be across the country throughout the year, bookmakers need strong business in weeks like this. The official figures suggest it was a solid week in that regard.

From 57 favourites or joint-favourites across the week, there were just 12 successful market leaders, suggesting it wasn’t always plain sailing for punters even if they had some cracking handicaps to try to solve.

The less said about how Dream On Baby’s appearance in the €110,000 BoyleSports Handicap Hurdle was handled on Saturday, the better.

Judging by the stewards’ report, it was an unsatisfactory starting procedure that saw her left at the tapes, and the communication of whether she was to be deemed a non-runner or not was very amateurish.

In summary, runners crossed the line just after 3.19pm, an inquiry into the start was announced at 3.23pm, and reports indicate the ‘winner all right’ was announced at 3.40pm. It’s understood that not until 3.46pm was the notification given over the PA for Emmet Mullins’ mare being deemed a non-runner by the stewards - the gap between the ‘winner all right’ signal and this withdrawal causing significant complications for bookmakers operating on track.

It was later again that exact details of the rule four implications were announced over the tannoy. Aside from bookmakers, you could also have had backers of Dream On Baby ripping up their dockets only to later find they would have been refunded their stakes. From start to finish, this really was a poor look for a feature race at a marquee festival like this.