Everything else is just exactly the same.

Apart from the racing that is. The racing is just a small bit different. In fact, Galway is different from anything, anywhere, and some people have been turning up there for decades without really understanding what kind of meeting they are actually at. It is food cooked from a complex recipe, combining a morsel of Punchestown, a soupcon of Ascot and a splash of Cheltenham with a dash of flapper meeting and rural point to point. There is something here for everybody's taste.

Take, for instance, the feature race at the opening meeting tomorrow evening, the GPT Handicap. It is a contest for qualified riders over two miles on the flat and limited to horses rated between 70 and 100. In other words, it is a flat race for fairly average stayers, restricted to amateur and apprentice jump jockeys riding at national hunt weights, yet is still worth 50 grand to the winner.

Unusual.

Goodwood's race planners have been a little less imaginative and they will instead rely on a pleasant little Group Two contest, The Lennox Stakes, to spearhead their opening day on Tuesday.

Make no mistake, this will be a top-class race with some high-class entries and all the jockeys in it will be experienced and accomplished professionals. But it's still not the GPT Handicap.

Even though it takes place in high summer, Galway's attraction is built principally on National Hunt racing and the real highlights of this wild week in the west are the Plate and the Hurdle. Although the jumpers that show up are not top class, that still ensures the meeting enjoys the relaxed informality jump racing inspires. Yet, despite this, the flat races can also be informative. The Irish Derby winner, Grey Swallow, made his debut as a two-year-old at the festival in 2003. Goodwood on the other hand is like a son of Royal Ascot out of the Chelsea Flower Show and only delicately stages the best of flat racing. There are no fences on the Sussex Downs.

That's all there is in the way of differences. The meetings are separated only by geography and the type and class of the racing. Unless, of course, you consider the racecourse settings. Goodwood is widely acclaimed as one of the world's most spectacularly beautiful race tracks and is set in an emerald amphitheatre nestled among the rolling countryside. The Galway track on the other hand is nestled among the rolling container lorries hauling materials to and from the factories in the adjacent industrial estates in the fine city suburb of Ballybritt. That sums up all the differences.

Apart from the history, the attendees and cultural impact of each of the meetings of course.

When the first meeting was held in Galway in 1869, 40,000 souls descended on Eyre Square and turned the town into something resembling a cross between a Barbra Streisand concert and a roundabout refugee camp. It began a heritage of slightly controlled bedlam which has survived ever since. Goodwood, on the other hand, was initiated by the Duke of Richmond a couple of centuries ago when he built a racecourse on his own land to amuse his military friends that were stationed nearby.

His race meeting eventually became an integral part of the 'London season', along with events such as Royal Ascot, the rowing at Henley and the yachting at Cowes.

The week was once described by King Edward VII as a "garden party with racing tacked on", and it still clings to that delicately controlled ambience. On purchasing tickets, patrons are reminded that "in the Richmond Enclosure, Gentlemen are required to wear jackets and ties, cravats or polo neck sweaters.

Linen suits and the archetypal Panama hat is also traditionally worn."

This general tone of elitism in English racing has come under recent fire. The influential English trainer John Gosden remarked last week that, "Racing at the top level can be stuffy. It's enough of a drag to sit in a traffic queue for hours to get there, and then be told that you have to wear a tie to get in. To be honest, I think some of racing's dress codes are a load of balls."

Ireland doesn't have a defined social season as such but, if it did, Galway race week would be there at the heart of things, along with the ploughing championships, the Rose of Tralee, and the hurling final. That is not to say there will be any absence of style and beauty out west . . . the lovely girls competition on Thursday will be top-drawer stuff . . . but if anybody tried to introduce a dress code at Ballybritt there would be frantic phone calls to the men in white coats.

The course merely advises patrons that it is advisable to dress in accordance with expected weather conditions.

Private enclosures are minimised and the only real segmentation is between those who manage to receive an invite to particular tents and those who aren't generously wealthy builders.

And that's all there is really, that's where the differences between the two meetings end. Aside from the geography, the horses, the jockeys, the races, the settings, the attendees, the history, the culture and the dress code, everything about the Galway and Goodwood racing festivals this week will be exactly the same. With the notable exceptions of the economic impact to the city and the after-hours social activities.

Race week in Galway is worth more than 70m to the local economy and, because of the centralised location of the meeting, the surrounding area becomes an entertainment and accommodation ecosystem for the fun-seeking multitudes that descend on the city. Goodwood racecourse on the other hand is more remote and consequently the after-hours activities are much more dispersed and diluted.

And that is it. Two gatherings in the same week that are almost exactly the same, bar the odd small difference, like Open-winning golfers.

Goodwood is very Nick Faldo . . . formal, distant and a bit remote. Galway is pure Harrington . . . engaging, friendly and welcoming.

In Galway nobody will care too much if all the trophies are stuffed full with ladybirds or any other insect. Just as long as everybody enjoys themselves.