SUNDAY, JULY 26TH

TATTERSALLS

With a rare Saturday and Sunday off ahead of the Galway Festival, I head along to the Tattersalls July Show at Fairyhouse hoping to copper fasten the ‘groom of the year’ award for myself as J.Q. (Joanne Quirke) has three horses in action there.

With the RDS Horse Show on next week the revs are getting a bit higher and the normal words of educational encouragement that she would dispense with during the year are now being wound up a notch or two if myself and the other grooms Roisin and Niamh don’t comply to instructions.

I wonder is this the way Jackie Mullins feels on the countdown to the Cheletenham Festival!

The weather isn’t the best but thankfully J.Q. bags two red rosettes with both Forpadydeplasterer and The Masters Artist making our jobs easier.

The Masters Artist is a coloured horse in the sidesaddle class and he makes it a double celebration for his owners David and Georgette Geraghty who welcomed their baby daughter, Polly Alexander, during the week.

MONDAY, JULY 27TH

GALWAY

I have a saying about this great game of ours - “same clowns, different towns” and this week the racing circus pitches its tent in the biggest venue for the year, the Galway Races. It is the final festival for manager John Moloney after 26 years in charge and through that time the Galway Festival has raised the bar for other tracks to follow.

All the daily newspapers, along with television and radio will be saturated with news, tips, coloured cards and fashion for the seven days and throw in the Twitter and Facebook machines and it’s a media storm for the races.

With this in mind I am always trying to think outside the box for some images to promote the game to the mainstream media.

The picture of a winner jumping the last fence has its place, don’t get me wrong, but you have to provide something different and this week we have a couple of images that do just that.

An image of Ruby Walsh checking his silks in a mirror, and an image of ‘Puppy’ Power getting 40 winks in the weigh room make the national dailies.

Simple images but people who probably don’t know much about racing like to see that kind of stuff.

RACING’S GOOD LIGHT

We had a call from a news agency asking us to capture “skirts blowing up and racegoers under the influence” would you believe?

Now I am not rich enough to turn down readies but stuff like that doesn’t do the game any good and we are lucky to make a living out of racing, so we always do our best to promote it in a good light.

The highlight this evening, the Connacht Hotel (QR) Handicap is won by Modem for mother and daughter team, Jessica and Kate Harrington and there are fantastic images to be got of the two girls in the winner’s enclosure afterwards.

Of course Kate is on cloud 99 and the win brings mixed emotions as she tells the press how she wishes her late dad Johnny could be here to see her win “as I don’t think he would believe it seeing me coming up the hill in front”.

After racing, I head to McDonogh’s Fish & Chip emporium down Shop Street to meet up with Chips, Snitch, Lord Halifax, Joe Tickets and Baby Snitch.

You won’t meet five prouder Dubs I tell you, and they show it this evening by bringing their own loaf of batch bread with a pound of butter to go along with the pot of tea for their dinner.

McGettigan’s Bar on Eyre Square is the shout afterwards for the few sociables where our old pal Michael ‘Mixer’ Dooley is the manager and we are joined by Berkie, Spike and Bags and Mrs Brown’s Boys.

Mixer has looked after us down the years for Galway and sure if you didn’t have to be up early in the morning he will always reward you with a late one if you give a hand to clean up!

TUESDAY, JULY 28TH

GALWAY

The pressroom here in Galway is fantastic with ample room for 30 of us during the meeting and there is an extra facility for the social journos and paparazzi crowd across the parade ring. Everyone has their own spot and I have RTÉ’s Robert Hall beside me for four days.

I suppose it’s like any working environment in that at times there is great banter and at times you can hear a pin drop as fellas are banging away on their machines hoping to tip winners for their papers. For this meeting the first fella in every morning is the doyen of the pressroom Tony O’Hehir, who will be followed by Ryan McElligott and Niall Cronin.

I usually clock in for 11am and in my defence I would be the last to leave every evening, making sure the website is uploaded. Of course this year we are missing one of the room’s stalwarts in Pat Keane of The Examiner who retired a few months back and I have to say I miss the banter with him. Pat was a great man for hopping balls and winding fellas up and you would always know by the gache of him when he was going to war in the betting ring. We wish him a happy retirement.

WEDNESDAY JULY 29TH

GALWAY

We have a gorgeous day for pictures today with the highlight being the tote.com Galway Plate. With the final two fences situated in “the mooneen”, two and a half furlongs from the finish, we have a full team on duty with myself, Liam, Kevin, Jack and Sean and we put together a great package covering all the angles.

The win of Shanahan’s Turn is a great story for 19-year-old Jonathan Burke whose success emulates his father Liam, who trained the winner Sir Frederick back in 2007.

Jonathan is a popular fella in the weigh room and if you listen to Russell, Walsh or Geraghty they will tell you that he has the potential to emulate all of them.

Shanahan’s Turn’s owners Alan and Ann Potts are huge supporters of the game and it’s another big race success for them and trainer Henry de Bromhead and a tonic for Ann who is in hospital at the minute.

THURSDAY, JULY 30TH

GALWAY

It’s a mighty day for Tony ‘Harvey’ Martin who trains the Guinness Galway Hurdle winner for the second year in a row with Quick Jack, ridden by Youghal native Denis O’Regan and owned by Kells man John Breslin and his wife Debbie.

‘Harvey’ is a gas man who never stands still for two seconds and if you watch him he’s like a fella doing an audition for the Duracell bunny commercial. He has us all traipsing after him in the winner’s enclosure to get a shot and I bet his legs do be moving even in his sleep.

John and Debbie are great supporters of racing and I bet he throws some party for his army of pals tonight. With it being Ladies’ Day today a crowd of over 35,000 turn up and the town is jammers afterwards.

I leave the track at 8pm and head to Berkie’s apartment for the dinner with Snitch, Eric, Bags and The Translator.

Spike is doing the cooking for the seven of us and he throws up smoked salmon and prawns for starters with a main course of chicken, mash and broccoli.