For the second month in succession, this newsletter is appearing very late. That will cause very little harm, of course, only a few will even have noticed. Those of you who have noticed, bless you!

Again I have a valid enough reason for the delay. The Jockey Club website went down for a week at the end of April and the beginning of May. Relying only on my faulty memory would have put me and my readers at a big disadvantage. It was better to wait for a week.

The Czech racing season started on April 5^th at Prague Velka Chuchle. The Gomba Handicap, the traditional opening day feature race was won by the favourite, last year’s champion sprinter, Mikesh, carrying top weight. Velka Chuchle has put on racing every Sunday afternoon, attracting quite good fields and quite good crowds.

The focus in the first half of the season is always on preparing 3-y-os for the classic races. The One Thousand Guineas has already been run, and was won very easily by Dumnonia. The Two Thousand Guineas will be run at Velka Chuchle on May 10^th. This is likely to be a more competitive race. Our big-time owners spend much more money on buying colts for the Derby, often with a view to a subsequent career over fences, than they do on buying good-quality fillies, with a view to breeding with them.

After a second successive very mild winter, there was enough night frost at the end of March to stop the grass growing much before our season began. In April, of course, spring came with a rush, and there has been a fair amount of rain. All our racecourses are now green and grassy.

On April 25^th, I made the journey to Karlovy Vary. The first race was at 10.15, and the 6.45 bus from Prague got me there in good time. This was the meeting under the auspices of an association of aristocrats, who were having their annual get-together, and needed to be somewhere else later in the afternoon. There were plenty of ladies and gents, all dressed up, drinking champers and tucking into barbecues. Having fun, I should say, and quite happy to have us proletarians gawping at them.

The Czech Republic is, officially, quite strongly republican, and the aristocrats in the region are either descendants of the hangers-on of the Austro-Hungarian emperors, or are from the German aristocracy. [Karlovy Vary is near the German border, and was one of the key cities in Sudetenland, from which the German inhabitants were expelled in 1945.] Personally, I am quite proud of my proletarian background, but it is a historical fact that Czech racing owes its emergence to the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy, and owes nothing at all to those of us who are proud descendants of the Irish navvies who went to Britain to construct the Great Western Railway in the 1840s. Let us say that, if they continue to sponsor a colourful day’s racing at Karlovy Vary each year, the aristocracy cannot all be bad.

I made a note to go the races at Karlovy Vary again. There is a good bus service from and to Prague. The racecourse still has its art nouveau grandstands, built at the end of the 19^th century and in a good state of repair. The older trainers at Prague Velka Chuchle remember how they used to take horses from Velka Chuchle to Karlovy Vary by rail after Derby Day, and train them there for the summer races.

I also went to Lysá nad Lábem for the traditional May Day meeting, which features the First of May Steeplechase, our first major steeplechase of the season. Lysá, just 35 kilometres east of Prague, is in good shape these days. The flat course is a circuit of only 1400 metres, but the turf is not so bad nowadays, and there is a good view of the racing. Some trees on and around the course have been cut down to provide the better view, but, in my opinion, rural atmosphere at this suburban course remains unspoiled. The steeplechase course at Lysa is not too challenging, though, to my disapproval, an Irish Bank and a Water Jump were introduced a couple of years back, “so that it might qualify as a crosscountry course” and perhaps put on a race in the Crystal Cup crosscountry series. The bank and the ditch are included only in a limited number of races for experienced horses.

The First of May Steeplechase was won, for the second successive year, by Rabbit Well, trained since last year by Josef Váňa. Rabbit Well’s career, both on the flat and over fences, has been punctuated by refusing to participate in races. On the flat, he preferred demolishing starting gates to entering them. He has now won twelve races, four of them at Category I level or higher. Twelve wins is not bad, but he could have won even more races if his antics had not spoiled his chances of victory. His win on May 1^st was very impressive. He seems to be happy to have Jan Kratochvíl on his back. The connections are fed up with driving him all the way to Italy only for him to dig his heels in, and they say he will run in the Czech Republic this year. This is our gain.

I am hurrying to finish this newsletter before May 8^th, when the first meeting of the season is to be held at Pardubice. It seems that meetings at Pardubice are to have 8 races, beginning at 1 p.m., this year. I see no race conditions for “bumpers” at Pardubice, though the calendar has only been published until the end of June.

Pardubice racecourse issued a press release this week. The prize money for the Velka Pardubicka remains at five million crowns, which is about EUR 180 000. For most of the other high category races throughout the season, there is an increase in the prize money. The most significant rise is for the four Velka Pardubicka qualification races, which will be run for CzK 400 000 this year, twice as much as last year. There will be almost no flat races at Pardubice this year – the meeting on Saturday October 10^th, the day before the Velka Pardubicka, will be mainly or entirely over fences. It is likely that a couple of major races traditionally run on VP day, e.g. the championship race for 3-y-o hurdlers, will be moved forward to the Saturday.

On May 8^th, a new mascot is to be launched at Agrofert Park. Agrofert Park is what I refer to as Pardubice Racecourse, and I had never regretted the absence of a mascot. But if it makes the kiddies happy, I have no objection. Do kiddies really like mascots?      

Low category races for “young riders” are continuing, and there seem to be more of them this year. Anyone who has ridden fewer than 50 winners over fences qualifies for these races as a “young rider”. The races have provided much needed opportunities for our less successful jumps riders, who work hard to get themselves into shape. It has been pleasing to see some new jumps riders making a name for themselves. They have probably been helped by these races. At the same time, however, the “young riders” racers take opportunities away from our leading riders, who of course do not deserve to be punished for their success.

It is good news that Jan Faltejsek, winner of the last three runnings of the Velka Pardubicka on Orphée des Blins, will be riding at Pardubice on May 8^th. He will be riding in the colours of BORS Břeclav. Jan is still working in the yard of Guillaume Macaire, in France, but there are many jockeys competing for rides, and Jan has had only limited opportunities. He is currently in 25^th place in this year’s French jumps jockeys’ championship. In April, he rode a hat-trick at Wissembourg in Alsace, where two of his winning rides were on Kamelie and Monsieur Bachir, both trained by Michal Lisek. Michal Lisek took over from Greg Wroblewski during the winter at the Pegas yard, where Orphée des Blins was trained.

Greg Wroblewski is now a public trainer, based at Levin, near Prague. He has a new set of horses and a new location, and it may or may not take him some time to settle in. It does not seem to me that he has anything like such good horses as he had at Zhoř.  So far, however, he has had three winners out of just 7 runners. Both Greg and his horses seem to be in good form.

The first of the ten racing days planned for Pardubice racecourse in 2015 will bring out some of the contenders for the Velka Pardubicka. The main race, the Opening Steeplechase, has attracted Universe of Gracie, Gauner Danon and Soros, which finished 4^th, 8^th and 11^th, respectively, in VP 2014, and several of the other runners are likely to be among the entries for VP 2015 – entries close at midday on Thursday, May 14^th.

Greetings to all readers who have read this to the end, and even to those of you who only skimmed the newsletter, and who had hoped that at least the final sentences might be worth looking at.