“The madness starts later on today.” - what a week to be in Galway!
Ballybrit is primed and ready to go, the races are finally here and later this evening the 2018 Galway Races will go to post and kick off the week-long festival!
Johnny Ward joined us on OTB AM this morning to give us his picks for the Tote placepot and talk through the main points of the day!
Patrick Mullins, Dermot Weld and Ruby’s return!
Patrick Mullins joined us on the first Friday Night Racing with GoRacing.ie on Off The Ball earlier this month - he spoke about really wanting to win this race for the first time, he’s riding Limini who’s currently a short price favourite!
Ruby Walsh is back in the saddle this week, coming back from injury to race in Galway, for the first time since his injury at Cheltenham. Did he rush that return to Cheltenham back in March, maybe so - but he should be well fit to start his chase on Rachael Blackmore (Ireland’s leading jockey at the moment)
Anotjer battle worth keeping an eye on is Dermot Weld vs. Willie Mullins!
For our charity bet this week with TheTote.com, Johnny Ward is going to split our weekly €100 bet into €20 a day to try and win the Tote Placepot which is at €30,000 for each day of the festival.
Below are Johnny Ward’s selections for Monday’s placepot, where we’re hoping to pick a place in each of the first six races to win a part of the €30,000 pool that’s up for grabs for the Injured Jockey fund - there’s four places in the sixth race, and three in each of the others!
Johnny Ward’s selections for the Placepot with the Tote
5:20 - Galway - no. 4 - Devil’s Glen
5:55 - Galway - no. 7 - Act in Time
6:25 - Galway - no. 8 - Third World
7:05 - Galway - no. 8 - non-runner → Johnny’s pick reverts to the favourite in the race.
7:40 - Galway - no.1 - Chelkar
8:10 - Galway - no.15 - Flindt
If you can get yourself down to Galway this week, do it - 250,000 are set to hit the festival in Ballybrit, on Saturday the footballers welcome Monaghan to Pearse Stadium to battle for a place in the All-Ireland semi-final and the hurlers will play Clare on Sunday in their All-Ireland semi-final replay in Thurles.
Johnny Ward will be on OTB AM at 9.00am, every morning this week to discuss the 2018 Galway Festival, we’ll have race tips and the biggest stories!
You can watch OTB AM from 7:45 every weekday morning on our Facebook, YouTube and Periscope channels. If you would like to see more sporting videos, like and subscribe any of our pages or log onto offtheball.com.
