This interview with Eva Petříková, trainer of Sacamiro in the Velka Pardubicka and also Maková Panenka in the opening race on Velka Pardubicka day, appeared in Czech language in Dostihový svět on October 5th. The interview was made by Jana Šejnohová, whose interviews with Czech horseracing people often appear on our website. Sacamiro has clearly been prepared with great dedication in a small yard for the Velka, and he just might have a big day on Sunday.

She was drawn into the world of horses by chance – by a newspaper advertisement looking for people to help in a horseracing stable. From that time onwards, Eva Petříková’s life changed radically. From a girl athlete spending each weekend somewhere else, on her bike or on her skis, she became someone that could scarcely be dragged away from racing stables.

Your life story sounds a bit like a fairy tale!

Do you think so? Well, maybe! When I stopped doing athletics at the age of 15, my parents wanted me to continue with sport of some kind. As it happened, I found an advertisement in a newspaper, in which they were looking for people to help in a racing stable. I said to myself, Why not give it a try? And that was the moment that quite simply changed my life fundamentally. My other interests up to that time came to an end for good, and I’ve never regretted things turning out the way they have.

You literally from one day to the next left behind everything that you’d enjoyed and fell under the spell of horses!

I was enchanted by the environment, and also by the personality of the trainer, Vladimír Moudrý, who said that you have to throw yourself into horses 100%, or not at all. I’d always liked animals, but this was something completely different from what I’d known before. Mr Moudrý prepared horses that he’d bred himself for races. Because of the financial costs of horseracing, he later changed to breeding sports horses, which he sold successfully abroad. He taught me the basics of riding and caring for horses in the best possible way.

You’ve been working with horses for a number of years, but you didn’t get your trainer’s licence until this year.

Yes, my husband and me, and three other people, have been working with horses for quite a long time. My husband trained horses as Kateřina Ilíkova’s assistant, but this spring, after I successfully completed my trainer’s course, we became independent. We’d wanted to do it before, 8 years ago,   At that time, I was pregnant, and I applied to the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic for a dispensation regarding the number of classes that I’d have to attend in person. But although I’d graduated from the Agricultural University and I was a qualified rider and groom for racehorses, and I’d worked abroad for many years, and I work partly in the field, my application was turned down. The rules are the same for everyone, and in that advanced stage of pregnancy and then in the first weeks with a newborn baby I was not able to do the travelling. So that’s why I’ve only now become a new trainer.

You train your horses in Beňov, a small village not far from Přerov. What kind of training facilities do you have?

We have access to a two-kilometre uphill galloping track and some nice steeplechase fences. We work mainly in the countryside, where the conditions for training jumpers are ideal, I can say. In winter, we travel to a hall, where the horses do some gymnastics, in which we are helped by Karel Diringer, multiple Czech champion in eventing. We’re not a big training centre, and of course everything could be improved, but in my opinion the  conditions are not bad at all.

And you don’t do badly with your horses, even though all of you work full-time in some quite different kind of job.

My husband works in a foundry, and I teach at the Agricultural Middle School in Přerov, and the others who help us also have full-time jobs away from the stables. We all meet up with the horses after we finish somewhere else. We have 5 racehorses, which is the ideal number to allow us to do things properly, one hundred per cent. There is also an older ex-racehorse, which is not only very good at leading out two-year-olds when they’re being trained, and also helps us a lot with preparing the young horses for their boxes and showing them how to jump. He is also used by members of the riding department, mainly students from the Agricultural Middle School in Přerov, where I teach. They learn the basics of racehorse riding on him, and they take their examinations on how to exercise horses, and they take part in simple dressage competitions on him. And the final equine member of our stable is the pony that our daughter competes on.

How many people are there in your team?

There are five of us, my husband, me, 2 regular riders, and Kamil Bukva, who maintains the track, makes hay, and does repairs. It’s not a lot of people, but it’s just right for the number of horses, which we’re not planning to increase. I think we give more to the horses than people who have it as their main job. We treat them like our children. And after these years when our team has remained unchanged, I can say that we still like our horses and they are our lives. However, there’s a cost – my husband and I have never been away on holiday, and it’s the same for the people around us. But because the horses are only a hobby for us, and we don’t make our living from them, we’re able to wait with some that mature later without anybody bombarding us with questions about why they aren’t already  racing. We work with the horses out of love and enthusiasm, not for money. We want to get pleasure out of it, and the results are not so bad.

What is your typical working day like?

At half past four in the morning, my husband feeds the horses. I let them out into the paddock before I go to work. In the midday break, instead of having his lunch, my husband comes back to do some mucking out, and at about three we all meet to go riding.

And on Sunday, your 9-year-old gelding Sacamiro is going to run in the Velka Pardubicka for the first time!

After last year’s 4^th place in the Labe Stakes on Velka day, we decided to try to prepare him for the Velka Pardubicka, and the biggest question was who would ride him. Jan Odložil gave him a terrific ride in the June qualification race, but in the August qualification race he was engaged to ride Lombargini, so we looked for a replacement. We were lucky that the best possible replacement – Jan Faltejsek – was available. And when it became clear that Honza Faltejsek was not going to get over his injury in time for the Velka, and Jan Odložil had arranged to ride Lombargini, we spoke with Kuba Kocman. He’d already ridden Sacamiro in the past, when they finished 4^th in the Labe Stakes, so he knows what to expect from the horse.

With what ambitions will you be setting out for Pardubice on Sunday? Are you still looking forward to it, or are you getting very nervous?

At first I was looking forward to it a lot, but the nearer it comes, the more nervous I am. Although the bookmakers’ odds do not suggest much optimism, of  course we do have ambitions. We are not running the horse just to make up the numbers. He can jump really well, he is reliable, and he is good to ride.

For you, which is this year’s favourite, and which could spring a surprise?

For me, this year’s race is incredibly open. In the course of the year, no-one has dominated in the qualification races. I tip Talent to win, but without a lot of conviction. The dark horse for the race? Our Sacamiro! I think he has just what it takes to spring a surprise. OK, he's not a horse from one of the big training centres, but until now he has been in the prizemoney in all but two of his crosscountry races. If he can do that again on Sunday I won’t complain.

Your team has not just been training and preparing Sacamiro. You are also the owners of the horse. How about the other horses that you have?

We are the owners of Sacamiro, and  we have one other owner – DS Ponytrans – who is represented by Maková Panenka, Cenný Monarcho and Cenný Email. Our situation is made simpler by the fact that no-one puts us under pressure about our results, while two of our five horses have won races this year. Maková Panenka won at Pardubice, Cenný Monarcho won at Slušovice, and Sacamiro has qualified for the Velka Pardubicka. That energizes us.

You teach at the Agricultural Middle School in Přerov, so you have an overview of the young talents coming into this sport. Are there any young people who, in these current complicated times, want to dedicate themselves to horse racing?

To be honest, no-one is coming along. The main question is, Where would they find a job? In the past, retired racehorses would stay on in racing yards, and volunteers from the neighbourhood would be allowed to ride them in return for their help.  Now the stables have a full-time staff and, at the end of their racing career horses have to release their box for a new horse in training, and the openings for inexperienced  young people are closing down. I teach classes in Agrobusiness for students of horsebreeding  and horseriding. We get about twenty new incoming students each year, mainly girls, and only two or three of them have the ambition to get into horse racing. Most of them simultaneously do the school for apprentices at Velká Chuchle and then get into horseracing afterwards. One of them currently is Petra Zedková, who has managed to ride eleven winners already this year.

Someone from outside, who doesn’t know how things are in the horseracing environment, may think that racehorses are dangerous, that the horses than can’t be  controlled.

Most of the girls that I teach think that racehorses are crazy, run away out of control, and are unmanageable. They’re afraid of racehorses, and later they are surprised that things are different in reality. The horses are broken in, and are used to working out in the countryside without any problems, and they don’t bolt. Every year I try to build an hour of racehorse riding into the teaching programme, but sometimes some of the girls simply refuse to get into a racing saddle.

You’ve been around horses for a number of years – how do you see the future of Czech horse racing?

I think that racing will continue and won’t die away, because there is a great tradition in the Czech Republic. I know the situation is complicated, but I think a way out will be found. The toughest situation is for the organisers, both from the financial point of view and because there are always faultfinders who keep finding something to complain about.