The second Sunday in October is every year the culmination of the Czech steeplechasing season, and it was again this year. Nikas won the VP on merit, and 41-y-o Marek Stromský was a highly popular and deserving winning jockey. We are told that a fortune-teller informed him that he would have an unsuccessful beginning to the season, but that he would win the Velka. That prediction was totally correct. Stromský had no success early in the season, and we are told that he was ready to give up and retire in midsummer. However, his wife remembered the fortune-teller and persuaded him to go on.

I have commented quite a lot on VP day in articles that you can click on to below. Can I particularly recommend the brilliant interview with Barbora Málková, which I translated? I think you will like ithttp://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/5807. Barbora Málková, who won the Vltava Stakes on Charme Look, is one of very few women riders to have ridden the winner of a Listed race over fences here.

I have waited over two weeks to make my first comments on the Frankie Affair, but now is the time to address the racing world. Almost a month before the VP, Frankie Dettori’s agents approached Pardubice racecourse saying that Frankie Dettori and an entourage of about 8 wanted to come to the Velka Pardubicka. Could they have tickets? Grandstand tickets for the Velka Pardubicka do not exist so near to the race. There are far too few decent places available at the racecourse, and most of them are sold months in advance to season ticket holders and to companies that rent a box for the whole season. Frankie’s agents were told that they could buy 4 tickets (for Stand A or Stand B, most parts of which are inferior or very inferior).

It should be pointed out that Pardubice racecourse assumed until a few days before the race that this was just another attempt by some blaggers to try to get some free tickets, or perhaps they just wondered Who is this Frankie Dettori guy, who seems to think we know and care who he is, and seems to want us to give him a whole lot of tickets?

On the great day, Frankie and a group of 8 or 9 turned up, and went to their allotted seats, which were not satisfactory. They had a very poor view, the stands face due north, there was a chilly wind blowing straight into the stands, and there is no glazing or heating in these stands. In addition, Frankie and his group were not warmly dressed. After a while, the group was moved to the K stand, which was open to the sky and very cold. Finally, after Frankie and the lads had said Let’s go back to Prague in our nice warm car, and were ready to leave the course, a decent solution was found.

Meanwhile, poor Markéta Hind (wife of jockey Gary Hind) had been trying to get a satisfactory place for the group to be made welcome in. She drew a blank with Dostihový klub, because several of the members of the party did not meet Dostihový klub’s dress code. Finally, Ivo Köhler, owner of Tiumen, managed to persuade the Town of Pardubice to take Frankie and his entourage into the Town’s fine box on the top floor of the Town Stand.

I say poor Markéta because, I understand, it was husband Gary who had undertaken to look after the group, and he was called away from the Czech Republic a few days before the race, leaving his very capable wife in charge. I assume Markéta also advised the lads, in vain, to dress up warm, and to wear something presentable. However, for reasons that will be implied later, some of them had nothing smart in their baggage. I used to be a member of Dostihový klub, and my guests, too, regularly fell foul of the dress code. Indeed, it was hinted on more than one occasion that my own attire was letting the club down.

Among the Czechs at the course, at especially in the grandstands, on Velka Pardubicka day, only a minority will have known who Frankie is. The only jockey they have heard of or care about is Josef Váňa. In addition, not all of the organizers at the racecourse will have heard of him. However, all racing people in the crowd were big admirers of Frankie. As word got round that he and his group were being treated as less than VIPs, these fans began murmuring. They were ashamed of the treatment given to him, and angry that Pardubice racecourse and Dostihový klub had missed the opportunity to welcome him warmly and give him the red-carpet treatment that he certainly deserves.

Czech jockeys formed a particularly critical group. A mildly-expressed article on the Galopp Reporter web pages http://www.galopp-reporter.cz/nazory/navsteva-lanfranca-dettoriho-v-pardubicich-14-10-2015 , written by Petr Malík, drew a lot of comments. Petr expressed disappointment in the reception given to Frankie, but conceded that it is difficult to know how to deal with celebrities. Some of them want constant VIP treatment and cameras, while others just want enjoy the afternoon as quietly as possible, and make as few appearances as is polite. Frankie fitted into this second category. He wanted to see the racecourse, watch the races, meet the jockeys. There were sharp ripostes on the Galopp Reporter website from our top steeplechase jockey and from the best present-day Czech flat jockey, among many others. They were angry and disappointed, but scarcely surprised, by the failure of Pardubice racecourse and the Czech Jockey Club to honour Frankie and to make anything of the opportunity to use his visit to promote Czech racing.

Frankie’s visit, I understand, was planned as a stag party on the Saturday evening in Prague, to be followed by a low-key visit to Pardubice racecourse on the Sunday, and back to work on Monday. Celebs are normally more careful when they go to stag parties. If they have an event the next day that will inevitably turn into a public appearance, it is their managers’ and bodyguards’ job discreetly or forcibly to get rid of the less presentable companions from the night before. They also have to make sure that their celeb has a warm coat on a cold day.

You will perhaps have understood that I, a warmly-dressed survivor of that freezing K stand that Frankie and his coatless group quickly moved on from, am not surprised and not too upset by what happened. We did not deal with it very cleverly. An opportunity was missed. However, much worse things than that can happen in steeplechasing.  

The insult to a great jockey was perhaps felt most keenly by our jockeys. They are aware that top jockeys are big celebrities abroad, as for example football stars are. In the Czech Republic, however, the big owners are still keen to assert that the owners are the key figures in our sport, trainers are their employees, and jockeys are trainers’ employees. This does not fit well, of course, on Czech Derby day, on Velka Pardubicka day, or in fact on any racing day here, when owners and trainers are desperate to engage one of the small number of local jockeys that can be depended on, for a very modest fee, to give their horse every chance to win the race, if it is good enough.

For ordinary fans, good jockeys are young heroes and good trainers are known to be wise and magical men, while owners are basically unknown, unless they are happen to be celebrities from their non-racing life.

Our jockeys’ championships are interesting examples of owners quietly putting jockeys down. The cups and the modest cash prizes for the champions are sponsored by leading owners, Martin Tour, for flat racing, and EŽ Praha, over fences. It is of course generous of them to put up the sponsorship money, and both are also sponsors of major races. They have a right to set up rules and regulations for their championships. However, it was announced this month http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/5764 that two of our top three flat jockeys have been conditionally eliminated from the Martin Tour Cup competition, for failing to weigh in correctly for races at Slušovice in September, i.e. they are disqualified on allegations of gross unsporting conduct. The case is still sub judice. The judgements so far have found that these separate incidents on the same day were caused by negligence, in one case by the jockey and the trainer, and in the other case just by the jockey. Accusations of foul play have been registered, but are still only under investigation. In the Martin Tour Cup, jockeys have the amount of any fine levied on them by the stewards deducted from their prize money, i.e. a double whammy. In addition, it is a rule that the prize must be collected by the jockey in person, at a midwinter gala event far away in east Moravia, when a top jockey might reasonably be taking a holiday or getting riding experience abroad. It is all a bit demeaning. It might be worth turning up for the first prize money, but the 4th-placed jockey, if he has had a few fines for this and that, might decide to stay at home rather than make a long journey to line up to collect a prize of only a few hundred euros.

In my opinion, Bauyrzhan Murzabayev has an unassailable lead in the flat jockeys’ championship, and Jan Kratochvíl is not going to be caught in the jumps jockeys’ championship. However, Bauyrzhan is provisionally suspended by Martin Tour, and he will presumably be taking an opportunity to go home or to ride abroad this winter.

As for the EŽ Praha jumps jockeys’ championships, with just three days of mixed racing to go, Kratochvíl has ridden 15 winners, plus a superior number of 2nd places.  Josef Bartoš has 12 wins, and Marcel Novak 10. However, the EŽ Praha championship is for points, not for wins. Believe it or not, the numbers of winners ridden by numbers 1 - 20 in our jumps jockeys championship is, in ranking order: 8, 12, 9, 9, 10, 9, 15, 2, 5, 3, 6, 3, 8, 7, 5, 1, 2, 1, 2, 4. I think this means that Jan Faltejsek, with 8 wins, will be declared champion!

After the meeting at Slušovice on October 28, all that will remain is two very modest mixed meetings, at Benešov and at Kolesa. Each of these meetings offers a single Category III race, and all the rest will be at Category IV or Category V. Definitely dress up warmly for each of these days, and at Benešov,in particular, waterproof footwear is strongly recommended.