The Czech Derby will be run on Thursday, June 23^rd, at 7.30 p.m., and according to the press conference held at the splendid Imperial Hotel in Prague, everything will be ready on the day. We were informed that the current going is 3.8 (good, good-to-soft). However, the weather forecast predicts high temperatures and drying conditions in the last 24 hours before the race, especially on Thursday.

Josef Váňa snr. is hoping for soft ground for all of his three runners: Timekeeper, Urban Joy and Alpheus. All three are by Galileo, like so many of Josef Váňa’s younger horses. They are expected to stay, but probably do not like the ground to be too hard.

There are six Czech-bred horses in the field, a record in recent years: Bonys, Krasava, Johnny Whistle, Secretive Lord, Montjeu Third and Golden Devil. The last three named here are all owned by Rabbit Trhový Štěpánov. Czech breeders and owner-breeders have been trying for years to breed better horses here, and let us hope they are succeeding. Czech-bred Lagaro, by Dalghar(FR) out of Lady Kristinne(IRE) (Night Shift(USA)), has already won the Czech and Slovak Two Thousand Guineas classics this year, but he is not entered for the Derby.

Betino currently has Gontchar as the 3:1 favourite, closely followed in the market by Timekeeper (3,5:1). Albe Back stands at 5,5:1, and Partyday is at 8:1. It is 10:1 bar four.

There are a number of foreign jockeys in the race. Pierantonio Convertino will be on Albe Back; Eduardo Pedroza will come from Germany to ride Alpheus; Jaroslav Línek, from Slovakia, will be on Montjeu Third. Spanish-based Václav Janáček will ride Johnny Whistle; Polish-based Tomáš Lukášek will ride Krasava, German-based Filip Minařík will ride Timekeeper; and German-based Jozef Bojko will ride Rumpl Cimpr Campr. Czech champion jockey in each of the last three years, Bauyrzhan Murzabayev, who is from Kazakhstan, will ride the favourite, Gontchar.

The race was moved from its traditional Sunday afternoon to Thursday evening because of the European Nations Cup and the requirement of the sponsor, Mercedes-Benz, that the race be shown live on Czech television. Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse manager Petr Drahoš was unwilling to hazard a guess about how the unaccustomed day and time would affect the attendance for the race. The day and the time will not worry owners and trainers too much. Trainer František Holčák, whose yard at Velké Karlovice is over 400 km from Prague, is happy that he will not need to get up in the middle of the night, as he so often does in the course of the season, to get Albe Back to the racecourse on time. If Albe Back wins, he will not be worrying too much about getting back home,

Definitely the best way to get to Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse on Derby Day is by suburban train. For details, see http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/6384.

The first race is at 5 p.m. There are eight interesting races on the card. The Derby is at 7.30 pm. ČT Sport is broadcasting from Velká Chuchle from 5.40 p.m. tuntil 8 pm, Central European Time.