After a long hot period in June, July and early August, the weather has become milder and wetter. Before that, there were far too many hot days, with temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius, and far too many thunderstorms. The last two weekends of racing in August, when our headquarters racecourses - Pardubice for steeplechasing, and Prague Velka Chuchle for flat racing - re-opened after their summer break, were run in mild weather on good ground.

In the late August meeting at Pardubice, run on good ground after some good rain in the morning, Kasim, fourth in the 2014 Velka Pardubicka, won after a battle with unfancied Gauner Danon. It is hard to imagine either of these two being in contention for the VP itself, on October 12th. At Prague Velka Chuchle, the autumn season began, as usual, with the St Leger meeting. Derby winner Cheeky Chappie again came from last place at the end of the last bend with a long run, as he had in the Derby, and hit the front just before the winning post. Jiří Chaloupka was again in the saddle, and he will for ever be able to remember these fine rides on Cheeky Chappie with pride and pleasure.

Quite a lot of horses are already qualified for the Velka Pardubicka, and there is some concern that more than 25, the maximum allowed number, will be declared to run. The rule is that 15 places in the race are reserved for Czech-trained horses. However, it is unlikely that there will be more than five or six non-Czech runners. There was some concern that triple winner of the VP, Tiumen, might fail to get a high enough rating to assure his place in the VP, after only getting round once in the previous 12-month period, and therefore not having a handicap rating at all. However, 13-y-o Tiumen and his 61-year-old jockey, Josef Váňa snr, finished in fourth place. It seems very likely that this pair of veterans will be at the starting line on October 12th.

Even better news for the VP is that Trezor has been supplemented for the race. His last 8 races, over a period of almost three years, have consisted of five outstanding wins in VP qualification races at Pardubice, including the June 2014 qualification race, and three very disappointing failures in the VP itself. Trezor is still only 10 years old, and the owner has rightly told the trainer that the horse runs in the VP, however reluctant she may be to risk the same disappointment again. Trezor seems to be at his best over 5800 metres on hard ground on a baking hot midsummer day, but he is the second-best Czech-trained contender for the race, and he has to run. A win for Trezor on October 12th is a distinct possibility, and would be very popular.

Two other horses were supplemented for the race. Universe of Gracie qualified by finishing 5th behind Nikas in the May 2014 qualification race. That was his best performance so far, and he would have to improve quite a lot more to get into the prize money on October 12th. The third supplementary entry is 9-y-o Lambro, owned by the Put it to the Vote Partnership and trained in the UK by Charlie Mann. Charlie Mann showed with It’s a Snip in 1995 that he knows what it takes to win a Velka Pardubicka, both as a trainer and as a rider. He is well aware, too, that 2014 is not 1995, and that it will take a faster horse than It’s a Snip. Lambro was trained in Ireland until quite recently, first by Willie Mullins and then for a short period earlier this year by D.T. Hughes. He is lightly raced, and has run in good company. He has only been with Charlie Mann for a few weeks, hardly long enough to have been full prepared for the Pardubice cross-country course. Nevertheless, this is an interesting and sporting entry. By the way, I see from his website that Charlie has very recently got engaged, congratulations to him, and his fiancée recently cut herself with a knife and suffered a nasty injury, commiserations to her.

A fascinating recent event, or should I say non-event, was a recent press conference called by the Jockey Club. At press conferences concerned with racing, the hope is always that the mainstream media can be persuaded to come and listen, and then take horseracing seriously. However, the mainstream is only interested in celebrities, i.e. Josef Váňa, or in scandals, preferably involving celebrities, or in dead or dying horses. Even the offer of a certain amount of food and drink in a city centre location will not lure them to a press conference on the State of Czech racing. We who write regularly and loyally are greeted cordially, fed and given a coffee, but we are not the target audience, and we rarely hear anything that is both true and unknown to us.

I had assumed that new, comparatively young Jockey Club president Jiří Charvát and his new team, including his vice-president Josef Váňa and highly-respected trainer Čestmir Olehla, would present a glistening new programme of strategies for the revitalization and upgrading of all aspects of Czech horseracing, under dynamic and innovative leadership. With a few words hinting that Jiří Charvát’s predecessor, Václav Luka, had muddled through for 17 years, but that it was now time for vigorous lobbying and for new brooms to sweep clean. The mainstream press loves that kind of thing, and they and their readers seem to believe that is the way wise policies are developed in a world of visionary celebrities.

In fact, there was not a word about Václav Luka, or about new strategies, only an observation that Czech horseracing has for several years competed for prizemoney of about CzK 45 million, only a fraction of what owners pay to purchase, train and race their horses, and that no major increase in this money is on the horizon. We regular writers on horseracing did not need to be told this. It was a press conference at which interesting things were not said, and on reflection and after discussions, I found Jiří Charvát’s realism reassuring.

Čestmir Olehla and Josef Váňa spoke positively about the introduction of races for so-called young riders, last year and this year. These have provided some opportunities for new riders to break through, and for others to get some experience. Some new amateur riders have appeared. Josef Váňa said that at Merano, where the crowds are very small on an ordinary racing day, a race for amateur riders, even if it is an unofficial race, can bring in a significant number of friends, family and supporters. We can expect more races for young riders, and perhaps for amateur riders, in future.

Next weekend, September 6th and 7^th, is the big meeting at Wroclaw, with the Wielka Partynicka, over hurdles, and the Wielka Wroclawska, over fences. These are two well-endowed races by our standards, EUR 25000 and EUR 40000, respectively. It is not surprising that the Czech entries are numerous. What is interesting is that our trainers are sending quite moderate horses. St Petersbourg, trained by Helena Blažková and ridden by Jan Faltejsek, may be our best in the Wielka Wroclawska. Most of the others, in both races, are Category III and Category IV horses hoping to pick up a Category Listed prize. Big efforts have been made in the last couple of years to revive racing over fences and hurdles, and also on the flat, at Wroclaw (the Polish Oaks was run there in August). It is good that a number of our trainers and riders put Wroclaw racecourse on their GPS more than a year ago.  I hope that the Czech racing authorities will get together to develop the young riders in Poland and the Czech Republic, especially over fences.

As usual, Czech-trained horses ran abroad in August, heading in various directions. They ran in France, at Deauville, Vittel, Vichy, Cluny, Clairefontaine and Divonne; in Germany, at Baden Baden, Berlin Hoppegarten, Leipzig, Bad Doberan and Dresden; in Italy, at Merano; in Poland, at Wroclaw; and in Slovakia, at Bratislava and Senice.

The biggest successes were Alpha Two’s win at Merano in the middle of the month. We are hoping that Alpha Two, Italian-owned but trained here by Josef Váňa, can again win the Gran Premio at Merano, which will be run on Sunday, September 28th. Another triumph was at Berlin Hoppegarten, where the sprinter Mikesh finished a close second in a black-type race. Mikesh is owned by a partnership that includes Martin Cáp, who is very active in writing about Czech racing, presenting the sport on television, presenting and commentating at our racecourses. If you are coming for the Velka Pardubicka, do stop him and ask him what it is like for a small owner to co-own a horse that came second in a black-type race in Berlin. Even two months after the great day, you will see what horse racing means to a real enthusiast.