No, we're not kidding…

Galway have shown to date that when they are tuned and ready, they are capable of wrecking teams, writes Anthony Daly.

Almost 20,000 punters and one president packed out Ballybrit for the big race of the week — the Galway Plate.

Day three in Galway always brings out the hardcore punters with the feature race of the week The Galway Plate bringing a huge crowd to Ballybrit, Conall Ó Fátharta.

It’s only day two in Galway and already the temperatures and the celebrity count are rising as fast as wallets are emptying.

Once you have the first 24 hours under your belt in Galway, the rest of the week should get easier - but it doesn't, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

Galway is often the best place to be but for one week of the year it's the only place to be.

Babies as young as one have presented for treatment at a service for victims of rape and sexual assault in the west of the country.

At around half six on Sunday evening, most of the Galway team were to be found licking ice creams outside Supermacs on the Old Ennis Road.

Each new revelation in the succession of scandals to envelope the Catholic Church cast the transgressions of Bishop Casey in an ever more benighn light, writes Michael Clifford

Listen Dear, trained for the Supreme Horse Racing Club by Willie Mullins, proved the star of Ballinrobe’s final meeting of 2016 yesterday when making an impressive chasing debut in the Connacht Tribune Beginners Chase.

It’s day six at Ballybrit and Capri gets the nap to take the one-mile maiden for trainer Aidan O’Brien and jockey Seamie Heffernan.

It’s a week that feels like a year but the ome stretch is in sight after we got over the hump of Ladies Day.

Ladies’ Day arrived in all its colourful glory — along with some good weather at Ballybrit.

It’s TheTote.com Galway Hurdle day in Ballybrit and Tigris River looks the value option to land the €177,000 winner’s prize in the feature.

The recent tradition of the Galway Plate catapulting relatively unheralded young jockeys to public prominence continued yesterday as 20-year-old Donagh Meyler steered the Gigginstown House Stud-owned Lord Scoundrel to victory in the Ballybrit showpiece.

The world is a better place because of the legacy left by jockey JT McNamara, described as “an absolute horseman”, by racehorse owner JP McManus.

An air of silence and sadness hung over the usually boisterous Ballybrit yesterday as the racing community mourned the passing of jockey John Thomas ‘JT’ McNamara.

Stomachs are lined, wallets are bulging, and it’s going to rain for the week. It can only mean one thing — the Galway Races have arrived.

Rise Of An Empire, trained for Gigginstown House Stud by Noel Meade, recorded his third success over hurdles when making all to land the Investec Rated Novice Hurdle in Ballinrobe last night.

The winning favourites which topped and tailed the card were not enough to prevent punters finishing a distant second behind the layers on day one of the Punchestown festival.

Pat Fahy is considering a tilt at the Galway Plate with Morning Assembly following his creditable effort in the Grand National at Aintree last weekend.

A bride-to-be has won €120,000 on the National Lottery.

The Army bomb squad has made safe a viable explosive device in a residential area in Ballybrit in Galway.

Banbridge driver Kenny McKinstry (Subaru WRC) with Kenny Hull calling the pacenotes won the Carey Cleaning Machines Icebreaker Rally in the forests of north Antrim.

Tomorrow night’s Carbery Navigation Trial in Leap in West Cork is the second round of the Munster Navigation Trial Championship. Local crews will be expected to dominate the 115km event although Limerick’s Alan Shinnors and George Shinnors (Subaru), who won last week’s Cork Startrek Navigation Trial, should again be to the forefront.

Day two of the Listowel Festival, and Rose Of Tralee can get punters off to a flyer in the opening fillies’ maiden.

A return to chasing, following a heavy defeat in the Galway Hurdle, can effect a return to winning ways for The Game Changer, this evening at Ballybrit.

Dermot Weld and Pat Smullen combined to steal the show with a treble last night at Tipperary, headed by Tested’s second consecutive success in the Group 3 Coolmore Stud Fairy Bridge Stakes.

My idea of misery is to be stuck in a house without a book. When I was a child, being a writer never entered my consciousness.

Aidan O’Brien holds very strong claims in six of the seven races at Leopardstown this evening, and his The Crewmaster earns the nap selection to take the ten-furlong Bulmers Live Leopardstown Maiden.

Cork and Roscommon tracks host evening meetings, and management at the former, which is being run in aid of the Irish Injured Jockeys’ Fund and Mallow Hospital, are asking for a minimum entry donation of €5, all of which will go to the two charities.

The sun was a non-runner on a dank summer’s day in Ballybrit, but a colourful Mad Hatters competition lit up the final instalment of Galway Race Week.

Baraweez landed the Irish Stallion Farms EBF “Ahonoora” Handicap for the second successive year as British raiders dominated the feature event on the final day of the Galway Festival yesterday.

Well after a glorious week, it finally came. Rain and in biblical proportions.

Taking the well-trodden path of supporting Dermot Weld should prove fruitful once more, as the leading trainer holds very strong claims with Palmetto Dunes and Good Tradition on this evening’s card at Galway.

With Willie Mullins having farmed the first race on the three previous days of the Festival, it was no surprise to see his As De Ferbet sent off favourite for yesterday’s opener at Ballybrit.

Racing took a back seat in Galway yesterday as folk with a passion for fashion flocked to Ballybrit.

Old reliables Willie Mullins and Dermot Weld provided punters with the only winning favourites on day three of the Galway Festival and the afternoon had begun just the way the two previous evenings had — Mullins getting off the mark with a winning hurdler.