Overview

Revived at Ballybrit, about three miles from Galway city, in 1869, the Galway Races has grown from a small country meeting into the fourth largest horse racing festival in the World. Its feature races, the Galway Steeplechase Plate and the Galway Hurdle, have a rich history and owners, trainers and jockeys love to have winners at Galway, where in those brief few minutes after the victory they all enjoy 'one crowded hour of glorious life'.This book contains an account of the origin and development of the Galway Races and people and horses that were part of this amazing story. Fred Cullen's feat of training all five winners on the card, the first English-trained winner at the meeting in 1904, the panic in Galway when the Government announced the centralisation of racing during the Great War and the U-turn that followed when it was realised that the economy of the city depended on the races. The great Galway trainers, including Harry Ussher, Maxie Arnott, Dermot Weld and Noel Meade, the leading owners, Charles Blake, Pansy Croft, Michael Smurfit, and the famous riders, including Gary Moore, Tommy Beasley, Joe Canty, and Michael Kinane all feature in this book.Events are also covered, like the winner of the Galway Hurdle that was disqualified because the owner did not pay the entry fee; the angry weather that caused the abandonment of the old Tuam programme when run at Galway for the first time and the changing face of Ireland in the early sixties, which caught out the Race Committee.

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9780709082156

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Francis P.M Hyland is a racing enthusiast who has written widely on Irish Racing history. Originally a stockbroker, he took a sabbatical to write the history of the Irish Derby, got lured into the world of bookmaking and never went back to stocks and shares. Francis has represented the Irish Racecourse bookmakers for many years, first as Honorary Secretary and later as Chairman of their Association, and is currently the bookmaker on the Board of Horse Racing Ireland. A widower with one grown-up son, he lives in Bray, Co. Wicklow.

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