Galway Festival tips: Johnny Ward's best bets for day one

Galway has developed into a Festival that combines fun and proper racing in the past decade or so, with a typically compelling start to the seven-day fixture on Monday.

Patrick Mullins wastes down to pretty much his minimum weight to ride Hook Up in the feature, while Aidan O'Brien has a couple of strong contenders at least in Anchorage and National Ballet.

This column has hit form of late and let's hope it continues throughout the week. Below are two handicappers that I think will go close on the opening day, and please remember to gamble responsibly.

This horse has run seven times and is yet to disappoint. At Dundalk last time out, he was relatively handy in the opening quarter-mile from a high draw but ended up getting quite badly snatched up.

Given the ground he lost, and his wide trip, he was pretty much the moral winner of the race and would have raced under a penalty here, had he scored.

He should be able to get a good position from a nice draw and, with Joey Sheridan claiming 5lb, has sound claims if he can avoid more carnage in running.

John Murphy goes into the Galway Festival with his horses in fine form. His past 15 runners have yielded two winners, one a 22-1 chance, and five seconds.

High Altitude is really interesting contender here. He might be considered more of a Killarney specialist, but he finished second in a maiden at Galway on his first outing at this track and was eye-catching at the Festival off 80 last year as he met traffic problems.

He's now down to a rating of 73, ran a perfectly nice race at Killarney last time, is well drawn and has the brilliant Dylan Browne McMonagle claiming 3lb on board, so there are plenty of positives.