May Day weekend in the Czech Republic and around

Mayday weekend

Mayday weekend was a busy time for Czech racing, with the nice sunny afternoons that we are getting used to. There were meetings at Lysa on Friday, Brno on Saturday and Velka Chuchle on Sunday. There were also Czech runners at Leipzig, Munich and Ebreichsdorf on Friday, at Merano on Saturday, and at Surany, Slovkia on Sunday. As far as the upcoming Czech classics are concerned, the most interesting result was the easy win of Bright Sand (Marchand de Sable) over 1800 metres at Ebreichsdorf.
Bright Sand had spoiled an impressive performance at Velka Chuchle recently by veering sharply to the left (not right as previously stated) and dumping his rider on the ground after surging into an impressive lead. The numerous Czech runners in the first meeting of the year over fences at Merano had no success, and Josef Van*a jnr, substituting for the injured Josef Bartos, was lucky to escape without broken bones when Sherento fell.

In the Czech Republic, on Friday, Nergos trained and ridden by Jaroslav Myska, won the First of May Chase, Cat I, from stablemate Mandarino. On Sunday at Velka Chuchle, The Joe McArdle won the Marketing Magazine May Handicap, Cat I. This was his second handicap win of the season, in spite of rising 8 kg in the weights and taking on an extra 400 metres of distance.

Arrinao

Arrinao, 2nd in the Czech Derby when he was owned by Chris Richner, is now in Switzerland, where he is trained by his owner Thomas Bobsin.
Arrinao completely lost his form by the end of his 3-y-o season, and had a number of very poor seasons. Last year he was under treatment in Switzerland, and ran quite well in October. On May 3rd, he had his first race this season at Dielsdorf. He won easily after leading from start to finish. After the race he was very fine and everything (legs and back) looked fine. Well done, Thomas! Thomas Bobsin also owns Lemes Hoffnung, whose best performance here was when she finished 2nd in the President of the Republic*s Prize in 2007. She also ran at Dielsdorf on Sunday, finishing sixth, but only two lengths behind the winner.

Janacek rides 6 more winners.

Champion jockey Vaclav Janacek rode six more winners at the weekend, two at Ebreichdorf, two at brno and two at Prague Velka Chuchle. He has now ridden 17 winners here this season, plus two in Austria. Tomas Lukasek, in 2nd place in the championship, has ridden just 5 winners.

Kasny leads the jumps riders

I know that some readers will be pleased to see the name of Pavel Kasny at the top of the list of Czech jumps riders. Pavel was a top rider over fences 10 years ago, but I understood he was going to retire at the end of last season. He rode two winners at Brno last Saturday, to add to his winner at Slusovice the previous weekend.

Next weekend

Next weekend begins with a meeting at Pardubice on Friday May 8th, which is a national holiday. On Saturday there is a meeting at Most, and Sunday is One Thousand Guineas day at Prague Velka Chuchle. Rabbit Zamindar won the main Guineas trial for fillies very easily, and should
win again on Sunday.

The curse of the Lysa trial jump

In Czech jumps racing, all horses are required to negotiate a trial jump successfully. Two weeks ago at Lysa, the favourite in both of the steeplechases unseated his rider and had to be withdrawn from the race.
On May 1st, again, in both of the chases, well-backed horses failed at the harmless-looking trial jump.

Two races annulled

Two races were annulled at the weekend. On Friday at Lysa, a chase had to be stopped when a horse fell at the grandstand fence and was blocking the course when that fence was due to be retaken. At Brno on Saturday a race was annulled because the racecourse ambulance was on the track and interfered with the running of the race.