Robin Healey´s June Newsletter
The Derby is coming, but this is mainly about chasing. In one of my newsletters last summer, I apologized to my select band of readers for writing about Czech flat racing when, I think, most you are mainly interested in jumps racing. Now, for the June newsletter, I will concentrate almost entirely on steeplechasing, to the amazement of one reader, although the Czech Derby is just 23 days away. My excuse is that, at time of writing, we have scarcely seen a contender for the Derby run over a distance of more than 1600 metres. It is too near to the race to write seriously about hopes and dreams, and it really is not worth writing about the Derby on the basis of the various Two Thousand Guineas races in Prague, Bratislava and Ebreichsdorf. When some serious trials have been run, it will be time enough to ponder the Czech Derby.
The good steeplechase news of the month is that Silver Birch, winner of the 2007 Aintree Grand National, is entered for the 119th Velka Pardubicka. He is only 12, and recently ran a good race over the banks at Punchestown. His name will remain on the list of entries until the end of September, and this will generate much interest in our race.
Whether he will actually run is another question, but let us hope that he will. Other interesting foreign entries are Darkness and Wonderkid, and it is good to see that old friends Charlie Mann and Ferdy Murphy are also planning to bring useful horses over.
The bad news of the month is that Moning Let, widely regarded as the best prospect for this year*s Velka Pardubicka, was put down after breaking a leg while running loose after unseating his rider in the VP qualification race on May 23rd. The loss of a star horse always generates a lot of sadness, talk, and assignment of blame. Some were saying that the obstacles at Pardubice are now much easier than they used to be twenty and more years ago: the races are run much faster, and the accidents are worse. Some say that our current riders ride very aggressively and not very skillfully, endangering themselves and their horses. Others say that the course at Pardubice is dangerous. Loose horses are a threat to themselves and to everyone else as they dash around the open spaces in the centre of the course. Moning Let injured himself running into the ditch that runs across the course. Others complain about the turf at Pardubice, and it is certainly not so easy to maintain the numerous cross-country and other tracks at the course as it is to maintain the turf on a park-course oval.
Let me start a new paragraph for the traditional ploughed fields at Pardubice. They are said to bring Pardubice racing much closer to traditional steeplechasing across the English countryside. However, the ploughed fields are normally dry and dusty, occasionally wet and muddy, and rarely just right. The constant change between turf and soil cannot be good for horses* legs - and Moning Let*s mishap at Havel*s Jump may have been partly because he came to the fence after running across a ploughed field when tiring towards the end of the race. I am told it is unthinkable to eliminate the traditional ploughed fields from Pardubice racecourse, but surely they could be reduced to a symbolic amount, like cobbled streets in the Tour de France.
Cross-country racing is inherently pretty dangerous. The range of different obstacles, as well as the changes in ground and the endless turns, sets a considerable challenge to horse and rider. When they are racing, horses and riders throw all caution to the wind, and that is what makes the sport what it is. The abandonment of cross-country racing in England and Ireland, and its replacement by oval tracks with fine turf and standardized plain fences was presumably an attempt to reduce injuries to horse and man. But I am not sure that a safe Velka Pardubicka, with manicured grass and plastic fences, would attract crowds of over 35 000, such as we had last October.
A talking point this month has been the race conditions for the Velka Pardubicka. Dostihovy spolek, organisers of racing at Pardubice, had wanted to lower the age limit for runners from 7 to 6, and to establish the same qualifying conditions for Czech and non-Czech horses. The Jockey Club, or was it the Steeplechase Association, agreed to the former, but not to the latter. There was no agreement on what the new conditions should be, or on a basis for selecting the runners if the race is oversubscribed. As it turns out, only a single 6-y-o, Florestano, has been entered this year.
No serious international racehorse rating system exists, and this is a growing problem for a country like the Czech Republic, which wants foreign horses to run in its Velka Pardubicka, and which sends horses to run abroad every week of the racing season. Czech horses normally do not qualify for handicap races abroad, and, more importantly, the elimination process for oversubscribed races is problematic. An example is if, as is likely, a German-trained horse wants to run in the Czech Derby on June 21st. Its German GAG rating will be converted unfavourably into a Czech rating. Similarly, a Czech-trained horse that attempts to qualify for the Czech Derby via a race run at nearby Dresden, rather than at Velka Chuchle, will get a German rating that is unfavourably converted, and may therefore miss out on the Czech Derby. And if a Hungarian or Russian chaser were to be entered for the Velka Pardubicka,
and the race were oversubscribed, how would they be rated?
We keep hearing from Pardubice of attempts to establish an international series of cross-country chases. We should rather begin by harmonizing the rulebooks and rating systems, and ensuring that the same rules are understood and implemented similarly in all countries, or at least in all EU countries. Implementation is often the larger problem.
To give an example, horse transporters are rarely inspected by the police in the Czech Republic, and a blind eye is turned by the racing authorities on the non-compliant vehicles in which horses sometimes arrive at our courses. When they go abroad and their transporters are subjected to a detailed inspection, on the road or at the course, our trainers feel that they are being picked on. And, of course, it may be true that they are subjected to special treatment. It is still considered quite normal to treat foreign people and their animals differently from the locals, and often less favourably, although we are
all now brothers in the EU.
We were blessed with warm sunny weather in April and May, and with almost enough rain to ensure good ground. Now the weather forecast, my bones and a look out of the window (strongly recommended to all weather forecasters, by the way) agree that it is, and will probably continue to be, colder and wetter than we have been used to in the last two months.
The Czech Derby will be the main event in Czech racing this month, but there will be two good meetings at Pardubice. On Saturday June 13th, the main race is the 2nd VP qualifying race, and on June 27th the main event
will be the Chladek & Tintera Gold Cup, on the oval track