Täby Galopp racecourse near Stockholm, the premier racecourse in Scandinavia, will hold its last raceday on May 18^th. Then the developers will move in.

When the plans for its replacement by the new Bro Park racecourse were made public in autumn 2015, Swedish steeplechase fans were shocked to discover that no facilities for steeplechasing had been included. It was explained that there would be some hurdles races on the flat racecourse, and that was that – the decision had been taken.

A campaign was swiftly mounted for a steeplechase course at Bro Park, with support from the Dostihový svět website http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/5759 . A vote was forced, and the decision to kill off steeplechasing in Stockholm was reversed http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/5804.

The most famous steeplechase course in Sweden is Strömsholm racecourse, which lies about 140 km west of Stockholm. It holds only a single day of steeplechasing each year, in mid June, when the Swedish Grand National is run. That race is over 4 500 metres for total prize money of SEK 240 000, equivalent to about EUR 24 000, and for the famous Swedish Grand National Annual Challenge Trophy, donated by the late Mrs Mirabel Topham in her generous response to a request for permission to use the name Grand National. Swedish Grand National day in 2016 is June 11th.

Bro Park will have its official opening on June 19, though it will stage one raceday prior to that, on June 1. Bro Park will now include a steeplechase course, but it will not be ready until late this year, or, more likely, 2017.

The 2016 season over fences in Sweden will be a bit different from usual. It will start on April 10^th with a single steeplechase at Blommeröd, which is staging its first official raceday since 2010. The season is starting there, because the conditions for racing over fences jumps are better in the south of Sweden at this time of year, and everyone is impatient to get started.

After Täby closes, hurdles races can be staged at Göteborg Galopp, at Övrevoll in Oslo and at Strömsholm, but steeplechase races will be more difficult to arrange until Bro Park is ready. There may be an extra raceday at Strömsholm on September 24, and there is talk of another raceday at Blommeröd at some time in the autumn. However, there are unlikely to be any steeplechases in Sweden between June 11 and September 24. Swedish owners and trainers will therefore be looking abroad for opportunities to run their horses. The best options, after Germany, are the Czech Republic and Poland.

Our most recent visitor from Sweden was Moss Cloud, trained by Dennis Persson and ridden by Henrik Engblom, which took third place in the first running of the Agrofert Velká narodní Steeplechase at Prague Velká Chuchle in October 2015. In June 2015, trainer Stanislav Popelka and jockey Marek Stromský went to Strömsholm with four horses, taking second place in the Swedish Grand National with Hawa Bali.