“And it’s there you’ll see the jockeys

And they mounted on so stably

The pink, the blue, the orange, and green

The colors of our nation

The time it came for starting

All the horses seemed impatient

Their feet they hardly touched the ground

The speed was so amazing!”

MONDAY GALWAY

WHICHEVER is your favourite rendition of “The Galway Races” either by The Pogues or The Dubliners, don’t you always find yourself humming it away as you get into the automobile “and head Wesht” for the opening day of the great festival?

To be fair, the Galway Races are a national institution these days, with RTE coverage and every media outlet in the country sending a representative. All week we will see the Galway Races getting wall-to-wall press coverage.

Of course this hasn’t been taken for granted by the hard-working committee here and under the chairmanship of Peter Allen and manager Michael Moloney. They unveil a new building today, “The Wilson Lynch” building on the site beside the bookies ring where the old Tote building stood.

Named after the man who donated the land to the committee back in 1869, it cost €6 million and you can be sure they will continue to raise the bar here.

You tend to find that each day of the festival brings great stories from the winners enclosure. Today we start off with 20-year-old Aubrey McMahon winning the Connacht (QR) Handicap for the second year in a row on his father Luke’s horse Uradel, backing up the win of Whiskey Sour last year.

Sure everyone is thrilled for him as you couldn’t meet a nicer young fella. You can hear the pride in Luke’s voice when he tells us: “Aubrey works hard, he is gone from the house by 10 past six every morning and I don’t see him again till 4pm. Then he goes and trains in the gym, so fair play to him.”

The other big story is the winning return to the saddle for ‘the greatest’, Ruby Walsh, when he steers the hardly appropriately named Easy Game into the number one spot. A delighted Ruby tells us that he had one week’s work in nine months, referring to the leg break at the Cheltenham Festival on the back of the previous one at Punchestown last November!

After racing I head back our apartment for the week just off Eyre Square and head down Shop Street to The Quays Bar where I swap a few pints with Ma Brown’s Boys, Berkie, Bags and Spike along with commentator Jerry “JFK” Hannon.

With Galway rocking and everyone in great form we raise a glass to our pal Bookmaker Edward ‘Baldy’ Flood, who passed away last week. He loved this meeting with the hustle of the betting ring, and his signature cry out to the punters of “win or each-way laid” will be missed.

You could fill this magnificent paper with ‘Baldy’ stories from his 60-odd years in the game, all of which were fondly remembered at his funeral in Maynooth last week.

I would love to tell the ‘Cathy Barry’ story from the Phoenix Park back in the day that involved Baldy slagging off our old friend, American jockey Cash Asmussen, after he got beat a short-head on one of Vincent’s hotpots, but I know the folks in the editorial office of The Irish Field couldn’t print it because of the language used!

So here is a little anecdote of Baldy and his ways. He would ask every bookie “how was it?” as in was the day’s work profitable, and one day having missed a point-to-point up north he met young Stevie Hughes, son of Franco. “How was it Young Stevie?” asks Baldy. “Mucky Baldy, very mucky,” replied the innocent young fella.

TUESDAY GALWAY

One of my favourite sayings is “time and patience got the snail to America” and I think it’s pretty apt after a couple of today’s results. Today’s feature is the Colm Quinn BMW Mile.

It provides trainer Willie Mullins with his fourth win at the meeting when Riven Light wins the race for the second year in a row, this time under his nephew Danny Mullins.

Willie and Patrick Mullins with the trophy for the Guinness Galway Hurdle which they won with Sharjah Photo.carolinenorris.ie

Now we all know what a genius Willie is but sure this feat has to go down as one of his all time greats as poor old Riven Light suffered a fracture when running in Australia last October and as Willie tells us: “it was touch and go whether he survived or not.”

Time and patience got this horse back from Australia in one piece, fair play to him.

Also on the same topic is the double on the card for Summerhill trainer Sheila Lavery.

Always a pleasure to meet up with at the races I would have run into Sheila a good few times during the ‘heat wave’ last month and fair play to her she told me every day that the stable had to sit and suffer during the extreme weather conditions as the ground was too firm for her horses.

She is rewarded today for her time and patience with a 114/1 double with Burning Question and her homebred Truffles in the last, ridden by what has to be one of the best nicknamed fellas in the game, Robbie ‘Chatty’ Colgan. O’Connell’s on Eyre Square is the call after racing where I swop a few pints with Boylesports’ Leon Blanche, Darragh “Grueller” Hayes, John “Brains” Lupton and “JFK”.

WEDNESDAY GALWAY

Plate Day brings us a dirty day weather-wise but, as ever, the ‘story’ that goes with the feature race brings a smile to everyone’s face.

Clarcam, ridden by Newcastle West man Mark “Fish” Enright, wins for trainer Gordon Elliott and Gigginstown.

“Fish” is a hugely popular fella in the weigh room and, fair play to him, he has fought his own battles during his career. In the racing circus we tend to put ‘outside world’ problems on a shelf, blatantly ignoring such issues at times. It took huge courage for “Fish” to speak publicly about depression a few years ago.

Last November he was tired of the road, driving up and down the country riding out where he could. He ran into Gordon Elliott at the races and asked him for a job. He has worked hard and kept his head down and please God yesterday will be a stepping-stone to more major success.

Where did he get his nickname from I hear ye ask. Well, back in the day he was living with jockeys Martin Ferris and Davy Condon and he wanted to get a goldfish and the boys wouldn’t let him! Luckily for young Mark he didn’t want a donkey!

THURSDAY GALWAY

For the second year in a row the feature race of the week the Guinness Galway Hurdle is run in weather that is more suited to a day’s racing in December but again it produced a great story.

Sharjah with top-weight and ridden by the winningmost amateur jockey ever, Patrick Mullins, for his father Willie, storms up the hill, making Patrick the first amateur in 27 years – since Philip Fenton on Sagaman – to win the Galway Hurdle.

I would say Patrick is an “amateur” in name only, and as well as being a huge cog in the Closutton wheel, he is one of the most articulate and intelligent interviewees in the game.

Afterwards he pays tribute to his own Mam and Dad as well as his grandparents, Paddy and Maureen, “for laying the foundation stone in Doninga.”

I would talk to Patrick now and again about the politics and wellbeing of the game and he would have strong opinions on getting the younger generation into racing.

He is a great man for technology and if you follow him on Snapchat you get regular head cam videos of Willie’s schooling mornings. Patrick reckons these clips and more aerial clips of races are the way to go to entice the younger brigade.

Shame we couldn’t see his head cam from his win today, like Patrick himself – it would have been box office!