Galway Races begin on Monday evening as the 53-race seven-day festival, worth €2.2 million in prize money, gets underway at Ballybrit.
There will be four evening starts this week – Monday (5.10pm), Tuesday (4.40pm), Wednesday (5.05pm) and Friday (5pm).
The cards on Thursday (2.10pm), Saturday (2pm) and Sunday (2pm) will all begin in the early afternoon.
The Tote Galway Plate on Wednesday, worth €270,000, and the Guinness Galway Hurdle on Thursday(Ladies’ Day) are the week’s features. The latter, at €300,000, is the richest hurdle race run in Ireland in the season.
Monday evening’s feature contest is the €110,000 Connacht Hotel (Q.R.) Handicap, won last year by Alan O’Sullivan aboard Filey Bay for trainer Emmet Mullins.
Colm Quinn BMW is the main sponsor on Tuesday, with the €120,000 Colm Quinn BMW Mile Handicap, won by Dunum for Natalia Luipini and Séamie Heffernan, the second day feature on an all-flat card.
The Grade 3 Tote Galway Plate, a race Closutton handler Willie Mullins has won nine times in the past twelve years, will highlight a mixed flat/jumps card.
Thursday is Ladies’ Day
Ladies’ Day on Thursday, one of the busiest racing days in Ireland each year, will feature the €300,000 Guinness Galway Hurdle. Willie Mullins has taken the Grade 3 contest five times in the last dozen years, while Tony Martin has been the winning trainer four times in that period, most recently when Tudor City won for a second time in 2022.
The €110,000 Guinness Handicap over a mile and a half on Friday evening has seen seven different winning trainers in the past seven years.
The Weekender
Boyle Sports sponsor the featured Handicap Hurdle on Saturday afternoon. This Listed race has been claimed by Willie Mullins on four occasions in the past 10 years, and twice by his great rival Gordon Elliott.
On Mad Hatters Fun Day (Sunday) – the final day of the 2026 festival, the Irish Stallion Farms DBF Ahonoora Handicap over seven furlongs is the closing-day feature.
Ado McGuinness trained horses are usually worth watching in this as the Lusk handler has been triumphant three times in the last decade – each time with Current Option (2020-’23).
Various ticket options and packages are still available for each of the seven days.
Further ticket information is available on the Galway Races website.
