Newsletter - May II Edition
I am making an early start to the mid-May newsletter, while memories of the opening race day at Pardubice are still fresh in my memory. In a couple of days the entries for the Velka Pardubicka will be announced, and then it will be time to write them up and post them on the web site.
Monday May 8th is a holiday here to celebrate the liberation of the country after the second world war. This used to be celebrated on May 9th, when the Russians took control. Before that, in the western parts of Bohemia, right up to the western suburbs of Prague, Patton’s army came in first. As in the case of Berlin, it had been agreed that the Russians would liberate Prague. After 1989, the public holiday was moved forward to May 8th.
The 61st anniversary was a lovely sunny but mild day, and the official going was 3 (good). There were nine races in front of the largest crowd I have seen at Pardubice outside the Velka Pardubicka meeting, putting the parking marshals and our monopoly bookmaker under stress. It was Italian Day, and it was good to note that many Italian acquaintances had survived the winter and were there.
The races were mainly in the lower categories, and the feature races were the Category I Color Car Prize, a crosscountry steeplechase over 4500 metres, and the Category II BP Projekt Pardubice Prize (BP Projekt is Mirek Petran’s architectural studio). Both of the main races were won by horses owned by Wrbna Racing, trained by Cestmir Olehla and ridden by Jan Faltejsek – whose 48th and 49th winner these were.
In the main race, Red Dancer made the pace, as in the Velka Pardubice last October, but he did not set off quite so fast and the race was much shorter. Decent Fellow seemed to be following the pace fairly comfortably, but Cziesymir and Bagdad were finding it a bit hot. Decent Fellow and Blizzard were on terms with Red Dancer between the last two fences, but Red Dancer held on, beating Blizzard by 2¾ lengths, with Decent Fellow ¾ length behind in third place. In the BP Projekt race, over 3900 m crosscountry, Treviso won quite comfortably from Nana d’Anjou and Mandarino.
There are a couple of races over fences at Most on May 13th, and then nothing over fences until the meeting at Pardubice on Saturday May 27th, first race at 2 pm, when the main race will be the Town of Pardubice Grand Prix, the first qualifying race for the 2006 Ceska Pojistovna Velka Pardubicka.
The racecard at Pardubice included an article about Czech-trained horses that had won prize money abroad by the end of April 2006. I will list all winners of prize money. You will note that virtually all the success so far has gone to the same trainer and jockey. The Olehla horses, trained up in the mountains of northwest Moravia, perhaps I should call it Silesia, have made a slower start to the season than the Van’a horses, but in the last couple of weeks they have started appearing on the track and winning.
On May 14th, the major raid on Milano racecourse began well but ended up with the sad loss of a very promising Wrbna Racing – Olehla horse. At the beginning of the afternoon, Vernar won yet another nice race, this time for 4-y-o chasers, ridden by Josef Bartos, but sustained an injury that seems not to be very serious. Pessoa came second in the big race, but injured a foot. Sun Set came third, Ner fell and received some cuts and scratches. Kolorado fell but was remounted and finished fifth. Kolorado was ridden by Dirk Fuhrmann, but this was because Jim Crowley was serving a supension. In a later hurdles race, Duce fell, and the very promising 5-y-o Lark fell and had had to be put down. Jockey Marek Stromsky was taken to hospital, but suffered no serious injuries.
The latest issue of TURF Magazin includes an interview with Vaclav Luka jnr, who now has almost 40 horses in training, after beginning with 26 last season. The good news is that Vaclav thinks he has a good team around him, and that this will enable him to continue riding. He hopes to have some runners in the Velka Pardubicka - Glogloglo and Cipis, and he plans to take horses abroad to run in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Another interview is with Austrian Harald Seebuher, who has a strong team of stallions standing in the Czech Republic: Rainbows for Life, Look Honey and Bear King. Vaclav Chaloupka is trainer, breeder and organizer of horseracing at Tochovice, multiple winner of the Velka Pardubicka as a jockey, and a champion 10-pin bowler. I read somewhere that, a good few years ago, he also won the race for human athletes over the Velka Pardubicka course, which is held every year in October. Vaclav Chaloupka is very concerned that there are not enough races, and that every week there are horses balloted out. This is quite discouraging for his owners, and he considers it a long-term threat to Czech racing. He is well entitled to make these comments, as he makes a major effort to organize a day’s racing at Tochovice each year on St Vaclav’s Day (September 28th).
Latest news: There will be racing at Slusovice after all this year. Trainer Radek Vraj will organize a mixed meeting, including a couple of trotting races, on Sunday June 18th. All this is subject to confirmation. This is excellent news for trainers and racegoers in Moravia, who have to make long trips most weekends to the major racecourses.