AS the dust starts to settle on last week’s Galway Festival, the seven-day spectacular, as ever, has provided much to reflect on and among those are the various trends concerning betting and attendance.

Over the seven days, Galway attracted a crowd of 129,058 as against 132,691 in 2018 and 138,945 in 2016 so it was disappointing to see those figures fall after a week that was characterised by some terrific weather up until Sunday.

To look further into these figures, Friday was the biggest day of the Festival for the second year in succession as it attracted a huge crowd of 30,823, and it should be noted that this attendance bettered the figure 30,159 from Friday last year.

However, the problem for the Galway Summer Festival lies in the middle of the week.

The opening evening remains very popular, Friday is enjoying a period of sustained growth and the two weekend slots are holding their own.

It is tough going for Wednesday and Thursday though. Last year Wednesday’s Plate fixture was switched to an evening slot in order to bolster its appeal but bad weather saw the attendance drop to 16,925. By contrast, an evening of glorious sunshine last week saw the attendance fall again to 16,634.

Traditionally Thursday has been the day to draw in the crowds but after attracting an attendance of 32,663 in 2016, the fourth day of the meeting was attended by 24,503 people last week.

Thus the days that play host to the biggest races of the week are struggling to attract the level of attendance that they once did.

Considerable challenges

This is not to sound alarmist of defeatist or suggest that these slots are displaying signs an irreversible trend, but the considerable challenge for Galway is to try to reinvigorate the middle of the week as the recent evidence point to these days being a struggle, and after a week of super weather, this is disappointing.

Bercasa with David Mullins, Melanie Horsmann, Helen and Tom Mullins after winning the Sign Up For A Tote Account Irish EBF Mares Handicap Hurdle \ carolinenorris.ie

Wednesday and Thursday were often regarded as days that attracted a significant portion of long-standing and frequent racegoers, so for these figures to fall represents not only a challenge for Galway but should strike a chord with racing throughout this country.

When attendances at the busiest race meeting of the year are falling, it should serve notice that nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to racing’s customer base.

These are challenging times in terms of attracting people through the gates and it would be remiss of racing not to sit up and take notice of what is going on and react accordingly.

To switch tack for a moment, it was of course pleasing to see that the cumulative bookmakers turnover for the week – over €6.8 million – mgain ground for the first time in over a decade.

This is a welcome development, albeit from a low base and to put things into perspective the bookies turnover for the 2015 Galway Festival came in at over €8.7 million.

IN terms of the actual racing at Galway, Willie Mullins was again dominant with his haul including two feature events and several of the week’s more valuable National Hunt prizes.

However, the meeting wasn’t all about the biggest yards in the country as evidenced by Matthew Smith’s brilliant handling of One Cool Poet, Saturday’s feature race victory for Harry Kelly, a resurgent Tony Martin winning the Galway Hurdle, and Tom Mullins picking up an €80,000 pot with Lucky Icon.

These successes call to mind another point of interest which relates not only to Galway but the entire summer jumping programme.

When the provisional summary for the period of May through to October was released there were surely a few eyebrows raised at some of the prize money on offer for jumpers through the summer months.

At the end of the Galway Festival, the summer months had seen 15 National Hunt races run for a prize fund of at least €50,000.

Four of those races have been won by Willie Mullins with a further three falling to Gordon Elliott, but it is interesting to look at the spread of the other eight.

One of those races went to Gavin Cromwell who sent out in excess of 30 winners last season, but the other seven went to seven different trainers and not one of them had sent out more than 11 winners last season.

So while the summer programme is now well endowed, it is also affording yards a chance to land a lucrative prize that mightn’t necessarily be within their reach during the winter when the various superpowers are in full swing.

ON a final note concerning Galway, and this point has been made before, surely the last day doesn’t need to end at 6pm. The final event on an eight-race card at the end of a busy week could just as easily be run an hour earlier and there is nothing to suggest that an earlier finish time would impact on the day’s enjoyment or attendance.

In terms of stable staff, this is an especially busy time of year and the week that follows Galway sees them travelling the length and breadth of the country, so a late finish on a Sunday which is the third eight-race card in four days is asking a little too much.

Perhaps there is something to be said for ensuring that the time of the last race at any Sunday meeting through the summer is no later than 5.15pm.

This is readily attainable, and in the case of last Sunday at Galway, an earlier start and finish is entirely realistic given that it wasn’t competing against a myriad of meetings across the water.