John McIntyre
 

GROUND conditions are likely to be near perfect for the upcoming three-day Galway Autumn festival, which gets underway on Saturday, in marked contrast to last year when course staff at Ballybrit had to battle against unseasonably heavy rainfall.
 

Ultimately, it was a credit to track foreman Gerry Broderick and his staff that all bar two of the meeting’s 21 race programme went ahead as scheduled 12 months ago considering the adverse weather around that time.
 

There will be no such concerns this time around as there is a favourable forecast for the weekend with course manager, John Moloney, describing ground conditions on Wednesday as good, good to firm in places, with some shower activity over the next 48 hours.
 

Moloney, who reported that the track was in excellent condition, revealed that no decision had yet been taken on whether to water the course ahead of the Autumn festival which is offering over €365,000 in prizemoney.
 

The feature event on Saturday is the Deacy & Associates Novice Chase where the versatile Beau Michael from the Adrian McGuinness yard which will be bidding to supplement his winnings at the recent summer festival.
Among Beau Michael’s likely rivals could be the Paul Gilligan trained

Lady Hillingdon, a winner at Killarney last week and, significantly, the Craughwell based stable has returned to form with a vengeance with Covie Lad and One Cool Tornado, both also bound for Ballybrit, visiting the winners’ enclosure lately.