On September 2^nd, 2023, Jaroslav Myška rode Sexy Lord to his 286^th career win in the Melody Catering Stakes at Pardubice, and he now holds the record for the number of wins in a jumps racing career in the Czech Republic. He had become the joint record holder on June 24^th, also on that occasion riding Sexy Lord.

He rode his first winner on May Day in 1998, and has been established as a top Czech jockey over fences for about 20 years. He has  also ridden 57 winners abroad, but he does not ride abroad as much as, for example, Josef Bartoš and Jan Faltejsek, who have both riddden more winners overall. Josef Bartoš has ridden a total of about 840 winners, including a considerable number on the flat. Jaroslav Myška is key figure at the racing stable at Kolesa, where his wife, Štěpánka Myšková, holds the trainer’s licence. Jaroslav, too, holds or held  a trainer’s licence.

I think he holds the record for the number of rides in the Velka Pardubicka by a jockey without ever winning the race. He has finished in every position between second and seventh, but never yet first.

The jockey displaced by Jaroslav Myška is Dušan Andrés, who retired after a long career in 2017. Throughout his career, Dušan rode both on the flat and over fences. He is the only jockey in modern times to have won the Czech Derby (Temirkanov 1998) and the Velka Pardubicka (Sixteen 2007). He rode a total of well over 600 winners, and rode 18 times in the Velka and 14 times in the Czech Derby. His achievements include persuading his wife, Jiřina Andrésová, to return to race riding after the birth of their children and supporting her efforts and helping her to become the first woman ever to win our flat jockeys’ championship, in 2022.