Mid July diary

To the best of my knowledge, nothing very dramatic has been taking place in Czech racing in the last couple of weeks. The weather has continued rainy, with big storms and some serious local flooding. The forecast, but not the reality, has been and continues to be that there will be several days of warm sunny weather.

Sunday July 19th is Derby day in Bratislava, and as usual there are a number of attractive races. The Slovak Derby, Graded 1, is well placed three or four weeks after the Czech Derby, and Bratislava racecourse manager Marian Surda makes efforts to ensure that the top Czech-based 3-y-os go on to Bratislava. The first three in the Czech Derby, Age of Jape, Arcibaldo and Ramblin Scout, will be in the field, as will expensive but so-far disappointing Czech-trained Mariydi and Lamasar.

Germany, Hungary and Poland will all be represented in this most international of the central European Derbys. Four other Listed races on the card have attracted, for example, Blue Coral, who easily won a Listed race in Italy ten days ago, De Roberto, Determinacija and Ryan.

Those of you who bet that I would not get to Svetla Hora last Saturday were quite right. It really is a long way, and my wife convinced me, probably wrongly, that it was a bad idea. I do admire the Moravian trainers who bring their horses to Prague and beyond every Sunday. The Holcaks have a round trip of 700 km when they send horses to Velka Chuchle. Slovak trainers* wives presumably send their husbands on their way before dawn.

The first three races at Svetla Hora went to Wrbna Racing, whose training centre hosts the day*s racing. Babie Lato easily won his first outing for a year, and then Klaus won easily. These are typical Wrbna-owned chasers: Polish-bred, very useful on the flat, trained by Cestmir Olehla, ridden nowadays by Jan Faltejsek, and full of potential.

The third Wrbna winner was the Irish-bred Rammstein, who was dismissed from the Olehla stable for naughty behaviour. In 2004, he demolished a hurdle and attempted to leap over a rail at Pardubice in a memorably reckless performance. He then disappeared from the course for 4 years, before reappearing in the yard of Milan Theimer. Olehla explains that he has no work rider that can deal with Rammstein. Last Saturday, Rammstein won from Tomis and Juventus in a tight finish, and I suggest this is the achievement of the season so far by the trainer and by rider Petr Tuma.

Talking of brave riders, Josef Vana senior is feeling young enough to return to the saddle. He intends to ride Welldancer in the main race at Albertovec on July 25th and also in the Velka Pardubicka. Talking of the distances driven by trainers, I saw Josef Vana at Lysa-nad-Labem races on Sunday. He had no runners that day, and Lysa is 150 km from his home.

However, he did not take the opportunity of a rare day off, preferring to go to a minor racecourse and spend the afternoon chatting amiably and enjoying an afternoon out.

Jan Faltejsek, with 11 winners, has a lead of three in the jumps jockeys* championship. He is making the most of being first jockey for the Olehla stable. Second and third place go to Bohuslav Matl and Pavel Kasny, who are both having good seasons. On the flat, champion jockey Vaclav Janacek keeps on winning. With 35 winners, he is 24 ahead of Jiri Chaloupka and Jan Raja. We are now about half way through the season, and the Czech record of 48 winners in a season seems to be at his mercy.

He has turned himself into a race-winning machine. He is his own very active agent, and has taken phoning round to a level never seen before in the Czech lands.