Stylish beauties runaway winners at Ladies Day
Dedicated fashion followers outdid the horses at Ballybrit yesterday when thousands of beauties donned their best gear for Ladies’ Day. Lovely Nicola O’Reilly was thinking about winning the coveted Best-Dressed Person award for the second year on the trot.
“I won it last year but I don’t think that I’ve any chance this time. I’m just going to enjoy the day,” said Nicola, who was wearing a short Gabbana dress.
To look as perfect Nicola must take hours of preparation, but the sexy Galway girl left us gob-smacked by claiming she can look this stunning in minutes.
“No, I get ready in about five minutes after getting up. I come straight up here because I don’t want to miss any of the action,” she said.
Others had been preparing since March, such as Eva Hayes from Limerick, who went to London to buy her stylish white suit.
“I went on a shopping spree over there and purchased the suit and hat in a shop on South Molten Street,” he said.
The Galway entrant in this year’s Rose of Tralee, Karen Broderick, 20, was also enjoying the day.
“Looking at all the stunning fashion here, I know that I will have to go on a good few more shopping trips in the next three weeks,” she said.
Then there were those who really didn’t care about winning the 3,000 prize in the Best Dressed Person competition.
“I decided to dress up for the sake of it. Sometimes it’s nice to look good,” said Aoife Doherty from Tuam.
Aoife mightn’t have been going all-out to scoop the top prize, but she looked every inch a winner in a short black dress, with an accompanying head piece that cost 200.
And there were some big winners on the course, too, like the Duggan family who celebrated their first winner in Galway after 20 years of trying.
Earlier in the week, the prestigious Galway Plate went to an outsider, but yesterday’s Guinness Hurdle event seemed certain to return to the big boys.
JP McManus was all-out to do well in the feature race of the day and he had three horses running.
But Seán Duggan from Hugginstown in Kilkenny didn’t read the script and his horse Say Again was first home to pick up the 91,175 winning cheque.
Say Again is the only horse that has ever won a race for Seán, who is married to Nellie.
They have four sons, two daughters and four grandchildren.
“This is a day that I’ve dreamed about. We will have a big party tonight.
“None of us drink, but we’re going to have a great time,” said retired farmer Seán.
And the Kilkenny man was just happy to be in Galway at all because he had to undergo a quadruple bypass last summer.
“It’s great to be here, and to have a winner as well is really special,” he said.
Others who were happy to soak up the atmosphere at the thronged course included Justice Minister Michael McDowell and film star Gabriel Byrne.
Fine Gael hotshots Enda Kenny,
Denis Naughton and pretty Alwyen Enright were also there.
The Taoiseach bowed out early when he and Celia Larkin were whisked away after the first race.
Bertie admitted that he made no money in day’s opening race but he finished ahead for the week. “I was trying to make big money on the last one,” he said.
Charlie McCreevy and wife Noleen were just arriving as the Taoiseach’s car was leaving the VIP exit.
“I’ll go home early, too, if I can make some money. I don’t think that will happen though,” he said.
