The overall attendance at this year’s Galway Races Festival suffered a slight drop of 3,260, as just short of 130,000 people went through the gate.

Most days attracted close figures to their corresponding day 12 months ago although nearly 2,000 less attended Ladies Day on Thursday. That may be down to the increasing popularity of Friday’s evening meeting, which once again broke the 30,000 barrier.

Wednesday’s Galway Plate day ran as an evening meeting for the second year in a row, but that failed to upturn the figures with another slight decrease on the year before (down 291 to 16,634). With regard to these figures, surprisingly on-course bookmaker turnover increased by €460,479 for the week (up to just over €6.8m).

Although that figure still pales in comparison to what might have been expected five or 10 years ago, it still represents a boost for the ring bookies, who have seen their takings drop continually year on year.

The Tote’s turnover figures last week were poor in comparison. A drop of just over €1m to €4,230,152 was disappointing.

On the track, the action didn’t disappoint, producing the usual share of good stories.

Tudor City gave Tony Martin a third Galway Hurdle in just six years, and provided his owner John Breslin with his second.

Ridden by Robbie Power, the seven-year-old finally got his head in front in a big handicap when driven to the front late on.

Borice gave Gordon Elliott a third Galway Plate in four years and jockey Luke Dempsey a first, getting up late to deny a famous win for British raider Black Corton and the ever popular Bryony Frost.

Willie Mullins drew a blank in the three top jumps races but hit the target twice in the flat features, taking the Connacht Hotel Handicap on Great White Shark (on Monday) and the Guinness Handicap with Mr Adjudicator (Friday). The former was ridden by Jody Townend, younger sister of champion jockey Paul, who is not long returning from a horrific back injury that kept her out of action for nine months.

Saltonstall gave Dublin trainer Ado McGuinness a big win in Tuesday’s feature Colm Quinn BMW Mile, getting up late under a brilliant ride from Colin Keane. There were also significant feature race wins for David Harry Kelly and Gerard Keane. Kelly took Saturday’s big one, the Galway Shopping Centre Handicap Hurdle with Great Trango and Keane, father of Colin, had his biggest win to date in the “Ahonoora” Handicap on Sunday.

Away from the feature races, Matthew Smyth’s One Cool Poet was the star of the show, recording a remarkable treble inside the week, becoming only the second horse to do so. The seven-year-old, who hadn’t won in 25 races prior to last week, was brilliantly ridden by Billy Lee for all three of his wins which came on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

For the fourth consecutive year, Willie Mullins took the Chanelle Pharma Leading Trainers’ Award with a haul of 10 winners. Donnacha O’Brien won the leading flat jockeys’ award with eight winners while Paul Townend was best of the jumps jockeys with six wins.