Colin Keane will be getting legged up to ride at Goodwood by the time Thursday’s Guinness Galway Hurdle starts, but he will hope to return to news of his father Gerry having landed the coveted €270,000 prize.For his part, Keane snr will leg up Eoghan Finegan on to Ragmans Corner for the festival’s Ladies Day highlight, hoping the young rider’s 5lb claim can prove decisive. Ragmans Corner is one of a 20-strong field containing a handful of Willie Mullins runners as the champion trainer bids to extend a race record that has seen him win it five times in the last 10 years.His great rival Gordon Elliott finally won his first Galway Hurdle last year, albeit in the stewards’ room, with Ndaawi promoted ahead of Helvic Dream. The pair renew rivalry, although the headline act among an Elliott quartet this time appears to be El Cairos. Although El Cairos ultimately failed to live up to expectations at the top novice level last season, plenty believe his natural speed around Galway will make him hard to beat in a handicap off a mark of 143.Galway Hurdle history, though, is littered with examples of supposed handicap “good things” finding the ultra-competitive reality around Ballybrit too much to handle. The fact the bottom three in the race are out of the handicap proper, and a single reserve, might theoretically suggest a slightly less fierce renewal, but the practical reality of a big Galway Hurdle field remains the same. Harry Cobden experienced it a year ago when fourth on his first try and he teams up with Puturhandstogether for Joseph O’Brien, who also has topweight Solness.Puturhandstogether was in the unexposed “good thing” category last year, starting a 4/1 favourite, only to miss the break and never figure.Ragmans Corner is an exposed talent with 28 races on the flat and over jumps under his belt. They include a course and distance victory in 2024 and a third to Filey Bay in last year’s “amateur derby”. A hurdles winner at Killarney in May, he warmed up for this with a spin on the flat.There would be few more popular winners than the 70-year-old Keane. He memorably teamed up with his champion jockey son in 2024 to win at Ascot with Crystal Black, who also scored at Group Three level. Keane won a festival feature in 2019 with Laughifuwant in the Ahoonora.His son is at Goodwood principally to ride Geryon for Ger Lyons in the Group Three Gordon Stakes where both Joseph and Donnacha O’Brien are represented by Enceladus and Shaihaan respectively. There’s black-type action, too, on the Galway undercard as Joseph O’Brien runs three in the Listed Corrib Stakes. There are a pair of cross-channel raiders as well as the prolific Meriden, winner of her last five starts.Trainer Paddy Twomey has already struck at Ballybrit this week and Black Caviar Gold at her best should be hard to beat. Ease in the ground should be ideal for a filly good enough to finish fourth in May’s Irish 1,000 Guineas.