THE 2024 Galway Hurdle will be remembered more for what happened on the morning of the race and at the start, but Nurburgring was still a dominant winner and might well have come out on top had Petrol Head been in the line-up, and many of the field got a fair chance at the flag.

His winning margin of seven lengths was the biggest since Quinze won by an amazing 14 back in 1999, only Overturn and Bahrain Storm coming close to Nurburgring in the intervening years, and in fairness his hurdling career has been all progress with the exception of the Triumph Hurdle run, perhaps forgivable due to the testing ground and his coming off an absence.

He was the second four-year-old winner of the race in two years, there not having been one since 2000 before that, while another from that generation, Ndaawi, finished second, deserving to finish a little closer after an early mistake meant he had to come from further back than ideal. Nurburgring was one of five winners on the week for Joseph O’Brien, tying him with Willie Mullins, though Mullins came away with the leading trainer prize on countback. Just behind them on four winners, from just six runners, was Ross O’Sullivan, no one having a better week than him, runner for runner.

Turned things around

Having been down on O’Brien’s 2024 season here a few weeks back, he has turned things around in some style recently, tied with his father with 22 winners trained in Ireland since the start of July, the most in Ireland. If any trainer feels they have had a poor first half of the year and need a lift, I can be commissioned to do an analysis in these pages, please contact the editor if interested!

Nurburgring’s task was clearly made easier by a start that starter Paddy Graffin himself described in the Racing Postas ‘unsatisfactory and not what I wanted’ though he was strong in terms of putting the blame back on the jockeys.

Normal starts to ordinary races can produce chaos, with riders not where they wanted to be, but this messy situation in a feature added another level of disorder.

Little chance

At least six horses had little chance after 100 yards, most notably favourite Daddy Long Legs, that one turned sideways as the race started, and while hold-up types typically struggle in this race as it is hard to come from behind, that need not be exacerbated by the start.

The one horse that did well from off the pace was the fifth, Mighty Tom. He finished one place better than last year when he was an eye-catcher for altogether different reasons as he took off mid-race, but he seems a rare horse that revels in this sort of adversity, while getting beaten in seemingly weaker races.

He is without a win since May 2023 and does not seem one to trust to back up this fine run, while he also bled on his most recent start over fences.

Note Elliott duo from Plate placings

THE Galway Plate started in similar fashion to last year, with Ash Tree Meadow and Authorized Art belting over the early fences, but unlike 2023, both were higher in the weights and got little peace with Amirite in first-time cheekpieces also looking to push pace, the trio ultimately doing a bit too much.

That set things up for horses to come from off the pace, including the winner Pinkerton who after a mistake when unsighted at the first, travelled much the best on his first run over the trip and showed enough stamina to hold off strong stayers up the hill.

Gordon Elliott came very close to winning the race for a record fifth time and deserves credit for saddling four of the first seven home, only one of them sent off shorter than

Unlucky

That horse was the third Zanahiyr who may have been a little unlucky, a mistake four out costing him position and he was only beaten a length.

Perhaps as interesting is his stablemate and fifth Chemical Energy who would have finished closer but for getting a significant piece of hampering on the turn-in. He has done a lot of racing over marathon trips on testing ground since his early chase runs but this sort of distance, or the bare three miles on a sounder surface, might be more his thing, with the Kerry National, where he finished a decent sixth after a long break last year, looking a good target.

Race favourite Perceval Legallois finished a disappointing eighth and had only bits and pieces of excuses. He couldn’t get to the lead (though that may have been a positive given the pace they went) and finished up getting trapped wide, most of those involved in the finish taking a shorter route around, while is jumping was nothing like as fluent as it had been at Punchestown.

The Gavin Cromwell yard also had a quiet meeting, surprising considering the form he was in beforehand.

His 32 runners produced just a single winner and two places, though Henry de Bromhead also had a middling time (three places from 13 runners) and Willie Mullins, though leading trainer during the week, was below his usual number of winners, five from 52 runners with 17 places.

From Galway to Cheltenham?

MUCH of the racing at Galway is mid-to-low range stuff, but there is always the likelihood of seeing good young prospects over the week.

Any of Aidan O’Brien’s three juvenile maiden winners could fit that profile while there will hardly be a more visually shocking winner all season than Sigh No More on Sunday, but for my money the one to take from the meeting comes from a more unusual source.

An English-trained novice hurdler winning at this meeting is a rarity, and the market seemed hardly to know what to expect with Gale Mahler in Tuesday’s opener, sending off a mare that had won her last five start only third in the betting against maiden hurdle winners.

The recent record of Irish novices in England would suggest that was correct but she overcame those patterns to win impressively, her hurdling sharp, and quickly putting the race to bed after two out.

She was beating some of the better Irish summer novices and while it could be argued that neither Gaucher nor Al Gasparo ran their races, it was a visually taking effort that produced a good time.

Cheltenham seems a long way off now but her performance here puts her pretty close to what would be required to win a typical Dawn Run; Timeform, for instance, had her running to 133 at Galway while the last five winners of the Festival race all rated between 133 and 138 on the day.

One never knows how summer form will carry into the winter but she looks the right type for that race at least, a stiff test likely to suit, and quotes around 16/1 offer some juice.