The top flat race meeting of the Czech season is on Sunday, June 22^nd, first race at 2 p.m. The feature race is the Czech Derby, Graded 3, for 3-y-o colts, geldings and fillies, over 2 400 metres. Sixteen have been declared to run.

The most favoured are British-bred Honzik Chipera (Archipenko), French-bred Tannhaeuser (Zafeen), and Irish-bred Cheeky Chappie (High Chaparral). Honzik Chipera, owned by Jiří Charvát and trained by Tomáš Šatra, is unbeaten so far in two races, including the Dr Frankenberger Memorial at Most on May 17th. In that race, Tannhaeuser finished 3rd, but he then went on to win the main Derby trial, the June Grand Prix, at Velka Chuchle on June 1st. The favourite for that race was Cheeky Chappie, which finished 3rd. Cheeky Chappy’s owners, MonteNegro, are only in their 4th year as racehorse owners, but have won the Derby in each of the last two years, with Kadyny and Mister Aviation. They have also had a St Leger winner, Always on Sunday, and last weekend their 5-y-o novice chaser, Brog Deas, won the Pardubice Gold Cup in style.     
As always, the Derby runners are promising unknown quantities as far as the Derby distance is concerned. Several of them will turn out to be good horses, though not necessarily over a mile and a half or on the flat.

As usual, some experienced jockeys from abroad have been engaged to ride in the Derby. Pat Cosgrave, from Northern Ireland, will be on Vainakh. Cosgrave is currently serving a very harsh 6 month suspension, reduced to four months, for creating a gap for a stablemate in Dubai.  Irish jockey Pat Dobbs, who rides a lot for Richard Hannon in the UK, will be on Zakhar Star. Both Vainakh aand Zakhar Star are trained by Arslangirej Šavujev. New Attack will be ridden by top Slovak jockey Zdenko Šmida, and Hungarian jockey Károly Kerekes will be on Navika. There was much interest in whether Martina Havelková would keep the ride on Honzik Chipera, or whether an ‘outsider’ would be brought in. Martina will indeed be on Honzik, and will be the only female rider in the race.

It quite often happens that a horse - this time a filly - is bought abroad at the last moment to run in the Derby. This year, a filly called Dekatmie was bought by Lokotrans after winning a seller at Compiègne recently, and has been expensively supplemented for the Derby. It is hard to imagine that a winner of a seller in France is good enough to win our Derby.     

There will be eight races on the card, including 4 category one races: over 2 400 metres for older horses; over 2 200 metres for 3-y-o fillies; over 1 600 metres for 3-y-o+; and over 1 200 metres for 3-y-o+.

This should be a good day’s racing. The racecourse is easy to get to by suburban train from Prague Hlavní nadraží (main station) at 20 and 50 minutes past the hour and from Smíchovské nadraží at 28 and 58 minutes past the hour. Trains return from Velka Chuchle at 25 and 55 minutes past the  hour.