The Galway festival finished for another year on Saturday after 121,561 had paid through the turnstiles over the six days. That figure alone testifies to the ever-growing popularity of the Ballybrit fixture but another Galway fixture, the name Mullins on the winners' roll, was conspicuously absent until Willie Mullins landed a 1-2 in the last day feature, the Dawn Milk Handicap Hurdle.

In terms of planning, though, the wrong one was successful. Mullins had been preparing Sambara for the race for a year but a late decision to run Welsh Grit was the ultimate move, Ruby Walsh's mount holding off Sambara by three parts of a length.

"Ruby had been riding him in his work and said he flying, so we let him take his chance in a £20,000 race. It's unfortunate for Sambara but we could now take her to Italy for her next race," Mullins said.

In a day of exciting finishes there was none better than the climax of the Premier Nursery, where Ten Tricks got up to beat Tiger Haven by a length.

It had looked an unlikely result in the dip where Ten Tricks was all out to go the pace, but under a determined drive from Pat Smullen, he relished the uphill finish and denied Aidan O'Brien and Christy Roche a treble. The leading trainer and rider of the meeting had kicked off with Lightning Star, who repaid Roche for kicking him in the Naas parade ring two weeks ago by fighting back with admirable courage to beat Tittle Tattle and Out 'N'About in the Dawn Maiden. The partnership was successful in the next race with Lafitte The Pirate, who followed up Tuesday's win with an equally comfortable defeat of Flash Of Speed.

However, the riding performance of the day, and possibly the whole meeting, came in the opening novice chase. Richard Dunwoody has been in tricky situations in the past but surely none trickier than when he ended up on Applefort's neck after jumping into the lead at the second last fence. The last loomed up quickly as Dunwoody remarkably clambered back in to the saddle and then, even more remarkably, stayed in it as Applefort jumped the last fence.

Dunwoody had lost an iron also but recovered that so fast that it looked for a moment as if Applefort would still win, but Kidstuff sailed through.

As well as the attendance figures, the Tote turnover was also a record, reaching £2,716,787, beating the 1995 figure of £2,579,894.