About the Galway Summer Festival

Located on the outskirts of Galway city in Western Ireland, the festivals that are held at Galway racecourse are famous all across the world.

Their most well renowned festival is held each summer over a massive seven days making it one of the longest festivals in the racing calendar. What makes it so unique is the mixture of evening and afternoon action that the course provides with three evening meetings and four afternoon fixtures.

Starting at the end of July/early August the 'Summer Festival' is full of fun and excitement as well as some top class horseracing.

Over 200,000 people will attend the seven day meeting where close to £28m will be reached in betting turnover with over £1.65m in sponsorship to attract the very best horses in training.

The festival has a number of special days to add to the flavour of the event with the opening day (Monday 26th July) named 'Galway Races Big Bash'. The day always has a celebrity guest who will mark racegoer's cards and draw prizes through the day.

Ladies' Day is the highlight on Day Four (Thursday 29th July) where the ladies are asked to make a special effort in a bid to win the 'Best Dressed Lady' award. Although it's ladies' day there is also a prize for the 'Best Dressed Man'.

The final day (Sunday 1st August) is known as 'Mad Hatter Day' where as the title suggests racegoers are encouraged to turn up is as 'mad a hat', again to win prizes.

On the racing front the seven days plays host to over 50 races with the feature events of the meeting being the Galway Plate (28th July); run over fences over 2m 6f the race is one of the most completive chase races in the jumps calendar. The other main race over the festival is the Galway Hurdle (29th July), run over two miles, which again will attract a number of high class hurdlers with the betting as fierce as a hurdle race comes.