Orphee des Blins, trained by Greg Wroblewski at Zhor, near Jihlava in the Czech Moravian highlands, is one of 21 entries for the

Many, though not all, of the roads taken by Czech horses running in the near future will lead to Rome. A project set up by Roma Capannelle racecourse in an attempt to lure Czech participants for the local jumps racing season has attracted considerable interest. It is sure that a group of Czech horses will leave for Italy in the coming days in an effort to follow in the footsteps of, for example, Lutin des Bordes, [winner of several good races in Italy in recent years]. The exact numbers are still in the air.

Will Velka Pardubicka winner  Orphee des Blins run again this year, or won’t she?  This is the question that trainer Grzegorz Witold Wroblewski must find the right answer to. There is interest abroad in the heroine of the Velka Pardubicka, and a race at Cheltenham is still on the cards. After the renewal of the crosscountry racing tradition at Cheltenham, this is a big challenge for Czech horses.  “Entries for Cheltenham do not have to be made until November 9th, so we must make up our minds by then,” the mare’s owner Jiří Trávníček said at Pardubice.

I normally include something in these newsletters about the weather conditions in the past month. It is interesting how easy it is to give a post-hoc weather report, while predicting the weather in advance remains a very imprecise art. We might say the same thing about picking the winners of horse races.  The weather forecasts for the Velka Pardubicka weekend were again well wide of the mark, and again excessively pessimistic. This has been the case in several recent years, when Velka Pardubicka day has turned out much better than had been predicted.