Delight my Fire, trained by Radim Bodlák, did not defend her title as winner of the Wielka Wroclawska, the biggest steeplechase of the year at Wroclaw racecourse, but she confirmed her quality by taking 2^nd place. Her trainer, Radim Bodlák, did not hide his satisfaction with the French-bred mare. According to the trainer, Czech racing fans can now also look forward to seeing her run at Pardubice on October 9th. 

“There’s no point taking her back to Wroclaw. Of course, we wanted to defend last year’s result, but we lost to a horse [Sergeant Thunder] that was better on the day,” says Bodlák. Since he won two of the other races at Wroclaw on September 4^th, he need not be too disappointed about the main race. Especially since Delight my Fire again put in a very high-quality performance.

“She did well, and she showed again that she is a top class horse this year. In Poland, she beat some good horses, and 2^nd place there was a very solid performance.”

The trainer then revealed the plan for the mare’s next race. “We’d like her to run in the Labe Stakes on Velka Pardubicka day, and that would be a trial for next year. If she likes Pardubice, we would aim her at the Velka. That is the long-term plan for her, if everything goes right.”

Bodlák is running horses at Slušovice on Saturday, and he would like to be contending for at least one win there. Apart from that, he is turning his attention abroad. “Since we have a Swedish owner in the yard, we are considering the possibility of running in Sweden. We will see how it works out. In any case, I’m thinking at the moment about making some more journeys,” Radim Bodlák added.

This is a translation of an interview by Petr Guth that originally appeared in the Czech-language pages of the Dostihový svět webpages.