Galway Races

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The Galway Races is a weeklong Irish horse-racing festival that starts the last Monday of July every year. The races are held at Ballybrit race course in Galway, Ireland and are the only seven-day race meeting in Ireland (or the United Kingdom).

Jockey and horses preparing for the races.

The busiest days of the festival are Wednesday, when the Galway Plate is held, and Thursday, when the Galway Hurdle and Ladies' Day take place.

1 Festival history
2 In culture
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Festival history

The first racing festival held in Ballybrit was a two-day event with the first race meeting on Tuesday, 1869-08-17. The summer festival was extended to a 3 day meeting in 1959, 4 days in 1971, 5 days in 1974, 6 days in 1982 and, most recently to, 7 days in 1999.

The pub underneath the Corrib Stand, built in 1955, was for many years the longest bar in the world.^{[citation needed]} It was replaced by the Millennium Stand which opened in 1999. The Killanin Stand opened in 2007.

On the 4th day of the Galway races there was a race meeting held in Tuam. The last races held in the Tuam race course was in 1973.^{[citation needed]}

Additional race meetings also take place in September and October, but these are not as popular as the summer festival, which draws more than 200,000 spectators.