Mr Land wins the Italy Grand Prix

The first meeting of the 2010 season at Pardubice was run in ideal conditions - a cool sunny afternoon after a reasonable amount of rain during the week. The main event, the Italy Grand Prix, a Category I race this year, was won by Mr Land, ridden and trained by Pavel Slozil. Mr Land is nowadays an old and very experienced horse, and he showed he is still improving. He will now be aimed at the Velka Pardubicka. Some promising young horses emerged from the other races. Rare Delight and Partoutatou, both trained by Greg Wroblewski and ridden by Jan Faltejsek, indicated that the Pegas stable will be a  force in jumps racing this year. Two former Derby winners trained by Josef Vana snr and ridden by Josef Vana jnr won well. Ready for Life won the Czech Derby five years ago, and was running for the first time in almost 3 years. Soros won the 2009 Polish Derby and won his first race over hurdles. Josef Vana jnr rode three winners in the course of the afternoon, and has already ridden 7 winners in the Czech Republic this season. Like last season, he is taking full advantage of the absence of his father's stable jockey, Josef Bartos, who is expecting to be back in the saddle around the end of May after cracking some vertebrae in a race in Italy.     

The next meeting at Pardubice is on Saturday 22 May, and will feature the first qualifying race for the Ceska Pojistovna Velka Pardubicka, which will be run on October 10th. The third meeting of the season will be one week later.