Highlight of the day

The delighted winning connections of Pinkerton lit up the Ballybrit winner’s enclosure after an entertaining finish to the Tote Galway Plate. Noel Meade and Philip Polly’s eight-year-old is certainly a chaser on thr improve.

Ride of the day

Declan McDonogh got a lovely tune out of Busselton to record a Galway winner for local owner Michael Burke. The former champion jockey showed all his strength and judged the fractions astutely on the smart dual-purpose type. An honourable mention to Darragh O’Keeffe for his well-timed challenge on Champella too.

Performance of the day

Ross O’Sullivan deserves real credit for his training performance to register a double across two competitive handicap hurdles on the card, including one who was seemingly strongly fancied. It meant the Co Kildare native had won with each of his last four runners.

Market mover of the day

Talk In The Park (16/1 to 7/1) and Shoda (8/1 to 9/2) were well-backed winners, but there was particularly strong support behind Jacovec Cavern in the concluding Tote Handicap over an extended two miles. He was returning from 459 days off for a new stable, but that didn’t stop his supporters from getting involved. Having been as big as 20/1 in the morning, and been 7/1 when opening in the ring, the strong-travelling runner-up returned as 11/4 favourite.

In-running carnage of the day

Willie Mullins typically dominates at this meeting but some of his runners have been a touch disappointing to start the week. My Great Mate looked to have an excellent chance in the opening Tote.ie Maiden Hurdle but possibly failed to stay. The 5/4 favourite hit as low as 1/5 in-running before fading to third. In the Galway Plate, Pinkerton (SP 20/1) went as big as 79/1 mid-race and Zanahiyr (SP 13/2) traded at close to even-money on the exchanges. The runner-up in the concluding flat handicap, Jacovec Cavern (SP 11/4), touched 1/6.

Unluckiest runner of the day

Forget about an individual runner, what about a trainer who didn’t get a favourable bounce of the ball? Emmet Mullins is well known for winners at Ballybrit and he continued to rattle the crossbar on day three of the 2024 meeting. He had runners in three races on Wednesday and saddled three seconds, following on from another runner-up with Merlin Giant and third in the Colm Quinn BMW Mile with Thissongisforyou on Tuesday. His horses have been running well without winning to this point.

Quote of the day

“Noel put this horse up for sale on Facebook a couple of years ago and we spotted him there. The rest is history. Who would have thought we’d be winning a Galway Plate two years later?” - Philip Polly was emotional after plundering the feature with Pinkerton.