Trainer Greg Wroblewski had 6 winners at the weekend: four at Prague Velka Chuchle on Sunday, one at Divonne (on the French side of the French-Swiss border) on Saturday, and one at Bratislava (Slovakia) on Sunday. He won some place money on both Saturday and Sunday at Wroclaw (Poland), and at Wissembourg (in Alsace) on Sunday. His best result was with the impressive Sokol, winner of the Category I EZ Praha Gold Cup over hurdles at Velka Chuchle. Wroblewski did well to find competent riders for all these horses. Sokol was ridden at Velka Chuchle by Pavel Kasny, our champion jumps jockey in 1997. The three flat winners at Velka Chuchle were all ridden by top apprentice Michal Mach, who is associated with the Pegas/Wroblewski stable at Zhor. The runners over fences in France were ridden by Thomas Boyer, who works at Zhor. At Wroclaw, Rostislav Bens rode, and at Bratislava, on the flat, Radek Koplik was in the saddle.

Czech trainers did not have their expected successes in the big meeting at Wroclaw, but they won the feature races at Bratislava (Ley Percy, trained by Vaclav Luka jnr and riddenbyVendula Korečková  for Ekols Skalica ČR won the Slovak Oaks) and at Merano (Imprezer, owned by Stáj Evi-Váňa, trained by Josef Vana snr and ridden by Josef Vana jnr, won the Graded 3 Premio A.S.S.I. EX U.N.I.R.).  

Next weekend, there is a meeting at Pardubice on Saturday, first race at 1 pm, featuring the last of the four Velka Pardubicka qualification races. No major contender for the Velka Pardubicka itself, which will be run on October 13^th, is entered, with the possible exception of Valldemoso. He has been out of sorts all season, and he is running on Saturday to see whether it is worth declaring him for the big race.

The feature race on Sunday ar Prague Velka Chuchle is the 92^th running of the GAAN and Partners St Wenceslas Prize, Category I, over 1200 metres. I do not know why this race is being run almost two weeks before the Czech patron saint’s day (which is September 28^th).  The first race is at 2 p.m.