Swedish jockey Niklas Lovén had been looking forward for several months to having a ride in this year’s Velka Pardubicka, but in the end he enjoyed his afternoon at Pardubice even without riding in the big race. His win on Delight My Fire, followed by getting into the prizemoney on the outsider Terebesz, left him in an excellent mood, and he was able to be a well-disposed spectator and get special enjoyment out of the race with his fresh experience of riding on the course. He rated his win in the Labe Stakes pretty high among the achievements in his career as a jockey.

“Winning at Pardubice is something that I rank very highly,” Lovén admitted, after winning the race on the mare Delight My Fire, trained by Radim Bodlák, a trainer who nowadays has strong links with Sweden. “It’s a one-of-a-kind racecourse. It’s complicated for a foreign rider. It’s wouldn’t be an easy place to be on the favourite,” Lovén says. “Although I’ve ridden a number of races here, each race is a special battle for me. And, of course, it’s very pleasing to manage to win a race here.”

When he rode Delight My Fire in Wroclaw in September, she was not able to repeat her win in the Wielka Wroclawska in 2015. This year, the mare finished 2^nd to Czech-trained Sergeant Thunder. However, in Pardubice, Lovén managed to reverse her defeat by Arcione on Velka Pardubicka day in 2015. He managed to hold off a strong challenge on Arcione by Jaroslav Myška, who was having a fine afternoon at the east Bohemian racecourse. However well Myška was riding, he was not able to catch his Swedish rival.

“I’m glad he gets on so well with Delight My Fire,” trainer Radim Bodlák said. “The mare showed straightaway that she will have to be reckoned with at Pardubice. If everything goes OK, we’ll prepare her for the Velka next year. She beat high-quality horses at Pardubice, and Niklas certainly helped her. We were very happy with both of them.

With his first win at Pardubice, Lovén at least partially made up for his disappointment with the big race. Originally he had been promised the ride on Pareto, which he had ridden into 7^th place in the May qualification race, but the ride finally went to Jaroslav Myška, whom he had just beaten into 2^nd place in the Labe Stakes. Lovén showed that a foreign jockey can still compete on level terms with the best Czech jockeys at Pardubice. We must wait for another year to see whether he can carry on where German jockeys Peter Gehm and Dirk Fuhrmann left off, and be the next foreign winning jockey in the Velka itself.

Whether or not this happens, Lovén admits that Pardubice has captivated him, and that he definitely wants to ride here again. “This is a rare kind of course. There’s nothing like it in Sweden.  We have a once-off type of racecourse at Strömsholm, but everything is on a smaller scale there. Pardubice is something else!” the Swedish jockey pointed out. 

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This article first appeared in the Czech-language version of Dostihový svět, written by Petr Guth