The weights for both the Tote Galway Plate and the Guinness Galway Hurdle have been released ahead of the Galway Races festival at the end of the month.
Peregrine Run from the Peter Fahey yard has been allotted joint top-weight of 11st 10lbs with Jett, Jessica Harrington’s sole entry, and The Storyteller, a Cheltenham Festival winner for Gordon Elliott.
🔈The unveiling of the weights for The Tote Galway Plate worth €2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣,0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣#GalwayRaces#GalwayRacesatHome pic.twitter.com/VTwpiu5vKy
— Galway Races (@Galway_Races) July 20, 2020
Elliott, who has won three of the last four renewals, is responsible for nine of the 35 entries. He could also call upon recent Killarney winner Galvin, Mengli Khan who regained the winning thread over hurdles at Kilbeggan last time and his narrow Midlands National runner-up Three Musketeers.
The full list of entries and weights for The Tote Galway Plate
It’s nine years since Willie Mullins last trained the winner of The Tote Galway and the champion trainer has made six entries, headed by Easy Game, a novice hurdle winner at the Galway Festival in 2018. Blazer, runner-up in the Guinness Galway Hurdle in 2018 is also among the Mullins entry as is Galway festival regular Robin Des Foret, Royal Rendezvous and Cabaret Queen.
Tony Martin won the Guinness Galway Hurdle for the third time in the last six years when the John Breslin-owned Tudor City got the better of Due Reward last year and the pair head the entries for the 2020.
Tudor City could bid to become the first back-to-back winner of the Guinness Galway Hurdle since the Noel Meade-trained Pinch Hitter in 1982 and 1983.
🔈 Unveiling of the weights for the @GuinnessIreland Galway Hurdle Handicap of €2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣,0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ pic.twitter.com/IXB3MhnsyH
— Galway Races (@Galway_Races) July 20, 2020
Willie Mullins added to the 1996 victory of Mystical City and the success of Clondaw Warrior 20 years later, when Sharjah became his third winner of the Guinness Galway Hurdle two years ago and the champion trainer has made 13 entries this time. With the recent Tipperary Grade 3 Aramon, Diamond Hill, twice a winner at the Galway festival and successful in the Listed Ardilaun Hotel Oyster Stakes on the Flat at Galway last September, last year’s Connacht Hotel Handicap winner Great White Shark and Foveros among his entries, the champion trainer certainly holds a strong hand.
Gordon Elliott has Aramax, the recent runaway Navan winner Felix Desjy, Mengli Khan, Saint D’oroux and Recent Revelations, and The Very Man among his early team of seven as he seeks his first win in the feature hurlde of the Galway Races.
Joseph O'Brien won the Guinness Galway Hurdle with Tigris River in 2017 and his only entry this year is his Grade 1 winning juvenile hurdler A Wave Of The Sea.
There are two British-trained entries in the Guinness Galway Hurdle. Fair Mountain could represent Dan Skelton while Olly Murphy has entered Hunters Call which gave him his first major success as a trainer in the Racing Welfare Handicap Hurdle at Ascot in December 2017.
The full list of entries and weights for the Guinness Galway Hurdle
Michael Moloney, Chief Executive of Galway Races said: “We are delighted to be racing this year for what will be a very different Galway Races. We have two huge pots of €200,000 each for The Tote Galway Plate and the Guinness Galway Hurdle and it is great to see these races supported with strong entries, especially considering we cannot now welcome back the Owners. It is hard to believe we are only a week away and we are looking forward to some great racing.”
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