another bright idea.

​Next to the Punchestown Festival, I would guess the next most looked-forward-to race-meeting in Ireland is the Galway Festival, which this year starts on Monday July 27th and continues for the following six days. It is claimed the Galway Festival is part horse racing, part seven-day party.
You would think in this day and age that during the summer a flat meeting would highlight the summer race programme. But no, it is Galway and its mixture of National Hunt and flat that rules supreme. If Ruby Walsh is going to have withdrawal symptoms it will be attending Galway, watching Paul Townsend win race after race.
Britain, of course, has a multitude of festivals throughout the summer, starting with Royal Ascot, and then Goodwood, with York and Doncaster to follow. But do any of these socially highflying gatherings compare to the more relaxed Galway, a proper working man’s festival?
Though one should never attempt to out-shine an original, I do think something of sorts could be attempted on these shores. Not a seven-day binge, of course. How do the Galway ground staff keep the racing surface fit for racing during such a long and sustained period? Something, though, could be attempted.
My suggestion is a six-day roving festival taking in three, four or five different racecourse, each within easy distance of one another. To give an example, Stratford, Worcester, Warwick, Ffos Las and Aintree. Yes, Aintree.
The three days at Stratford, Worcester and Warwick could be labelled a ‘Midlands Festival of racing’, with a good quality handicap as the main feature on all three days or evenings, which might be preferable. Ffos Las could serve up a two-day Welsh Festival of racing, a mixture of flat and jumping. With perhaps the feature races high-end flat handicaps. The sixth day, though, is the bright spark that illuminates the whole. A proper Summer National.
Overall the modifications to the Grand National have proved greatly beneficial to the image of the race. I absolutely loved it this year when thirty-seven horses were still standing going on to the second circuit. What I remain critical about, though, is that horses get into the race on account of a handicap mark attained six or twelve months beforehand whilst proper Grand National horses fail to get into the race. I ask you, which of Blow By Blow or Milansbar had a better chance of jumping round this year? The drive for a higher standard of horse, along with other tweaks, have denied the Grand National the romance that was once synonymous with the race. No longer is there any Corinthian spirit through the likes of the Duke of Alburquerque or the more successful Tommy Smith. No horses trained outside of Britain and Ireland. No permit-trained winners as with Grittar. My suggestion will not directly address these omissions to the great race but might at least provide an opportunity for a Spanish Duke of an American timber rider to compete again. Perhaps even another Fujino-O.
A thirty runner Summer National, run over the full Grand National course would give the likes of Milansbar, good old warriors that stay and jump, an opportunity to prove themselves to the handicapper and have their handicap mark raised come February when he is drawing up the weights for the big race. Also, and I think this is, irrespective of my overall idea, an idea whose time has come, the winner of the Summer National, and the Becher Chase in November, should gain automatic entry into the Grand National, no matter what handicap mark they have. For certain races, ‘win and you are in’ is a no-brainer.
In Ireland they see no distinction between the flat and jumping no matter what time of year it is. Just because it is the summer months it does not disallow jumping a slice of the limelight and that should be the attitude over here. A Summer National will not pull 70,000 people to Aintree as it would in April, though marketed correctly half that number may not be impossible to achieve. Schedule attractive racing and the people will come.
Now, I am not as stupid as I may seem. There is great cost involved in dressing the Aintree fences and in July or August there might be a problem sourcing the right materials. And then sponsors will be needed to found, and the B.H.A., not the most adventurous of authorities, would have to be persuaded. Faith, though, can move mountains, so I am led to believe. Good old Faith!
To be successful at anything, be that sport or business, and horse racing is both, the greatest assets must be utilised to the nth degree. Aintree, its iconic fences, summer evening racing, must have a better chance of success than three sprints up a city street or daft team events that are not representative of the sport in any sort of way. Galway expect 140,000 people to attend its seven-day festival, with its 2-million-euro prize money pot. Whether similar attendances and prize money is too great an expectation only time will tell. But I would hope someone of influence or microphone will read this piece and put it out there for debate.