The December 2016 newsletter has been delayed to an extraordinary extent, for reasons that are too banal to report in full here. Let us say that I decided to adjust my work/life balance, to prioritize things more in favour of my life and less in favour of other people’s work. For example, I hoped to be able to give more priority to Dostihový svět and less to annual reports. However, the reprioritization campaign failed very rapidly and very completely. I very soon concluded that it is far too much trouble to take my own convenience, my social programme and my health into consideration when people who make payments to me want me to give my time and attention exclusively to their concerns. Of course, the end of the year was the wrong time for this reprioritization campaign. The people I work for come under particular pressure at this time of the year, with reports to submit and end-of-year deadlines to meet. They need my strong support, and none of this nonsense about work/life balance. As a consequence of all this, the December 2016 newsletter did not get the intended priority, and is appearing very late.

November 2016 was quite an interesting month for Czech racing. The final day of our racing season, at inaccessible and chilly Kolesa, featured very close contests for our jockeys’ championships. Over fences, our 2015 jumps jockeys’ champion Jan Kratochvíl for the first time this year took the lead in the championship on this final day, and won the championship very narrowly from Jaroslav Myška. On the flat, Jan Raja had been in the lead all season until the end of October. Then he was briefly overtaken, but he narrowly held on to the lead that he took into the final day at Kolesa. He beat Bauyrzhan Murzabayev, winner of the championship for the previous three seasons, into second place. Both of the second-placed finishers were beaten into second place by a narrow margin in one of their races on the final day. The focus was fully on our jockeys on that day. I am committed in future to devoting more attention to our riders in the articles I write for Dostihový svět.

2016 has been a good year for our girl riders. Kateřina Hlubučková, with 17 winners, won our championship for lady riders for the first time, finishing ahead of Martina Havelková, 14 winners, Vendula Korecková, 10 winners, and Jiřína Andrésová, 10 winners. These four finished in 5th, 8th, 10th and 11th place in our overal flat jockeys’ championship. All four were in considerable demand, as they are the best four available at low weights. Kateřina,Martina and Jiřína can ride at 49 kg and less, while none of our top men riders can do less than 54 kg. Martina Havelková had more rides in the Czech Republic (197) than any other Czech rider in the 2016 season.

Kateřina Hlubučková needs only 5 more wins to get her jockey title for riding 50 winners. This will cost her her rider’s allowance, but it will scarcely affect the number of rides that she will be offered in 2017. Jiřína Andrésová, wife of veteran jockey Dušan Andrés, is also likely to reach 50 winners in 2017, and will also continue to get plenty of rides.

Eliška Kubinová is however the most successful of all Czech woman riders again this year. She never rode a winner when she was an apprentice here. She then went to the USA as an au pair, and started riding out a bit for a local trainer. He put her up on a horse, allegedly without telling her in advance. They won the race, and she very rapidly went on to become a top rider in the northwestern states of the USA. She returned to race riding this year after having a baby, and has ridden 26 winners, bringing her career total to over 340. Unfortunately, Eliška has not yet been back to ride in the Czech Republic. She might be surprised how much interest a visit to Prague Velká Chuchle by her and her jockey partner would arouse.

Our male riders have done well abroad this year. On the flat, Filip Minarík is on target to win the German jockeys’ championship. I think it will be for the third time. TomášLukášek and Martin Srnec are well established among the top jockeys in Poland. Václav Janáček will not be retaining his flat jockeys’ championship in Spain this year. Instead, he spent quite a lot of the summer riding in various countries, including six racedays in the Czech Republic, plus excursions to ride in major races, for example, at Bratislava, Budapest, and Berlin Hoppegarten. His visits to ride in the Czech Republic and his strong support for the European Jockeys Cup meetings at Prague Velká Chuchle this year and last year mark Václav Janáček not only as a top professional jockey but also as a key figure for the international prestige and the good name of Czech horse racing.

Our Czech jumps jockeys and trainers nowadays dominate in Italy and also at Wroclaw, in Poland. So much so that it would be better for the sport in those countries if local riders and trainers could get a bigger share of the glory and of the winnings. Josef Bartoš, who has been out with a broken collar bone recently, leads the Italian jumps jockeys’ championship. With dominant Italian jumps trainer Paolo Favero, for whom Bartoš rides, serving a suspension, and with the ongoing problems with prizemoney payments, Italian jumps racing continues not to be in a good place. Marcel Novák may have been the most successful rider over fences in Poland in 2016. He rode 6 winners there, which presumably makes him the Polish champion.

There are other things that I could have gone into in more detail in this newsletter:

The 22^nd Czech Horseracing Gala Evening will again be held in Národní dům na Vinohradech in Prague. The date is February 4^th. The location, next to Naméstí Miru metro station, is very good. The evening will begin formally, with a prizegiving ceremony, food and drink, and ballroom dancing. Then we old ones will go home, the level of formality will drop, and the real party will begin. Tickets are already on sale. I will give details about this event in a separate article.

There will be Parimutuel betting in 2017 at a Friday evening meeting at Prague Velká Chuchle and at another Friday evening meeting at Most racecourse, and also on Velka Pardubicka day. I will also give details about this in a separate article.

The weather in the Czech Republic remained mild, though chilly and grey, throughout November (and until mid December). Although our local season was over at the beginning of November, many trainers decided to keep some horses in training for races abraod, and several horses have won some decent races. Over the whole year, the amount of prizemoney won abroad by Czech-trained horses has actually exceeded the amount won by them inside the Czech Republic. That is a fine achievement, but it also reflects the poor prizemoney here and the limited opportunities here for good-quality horses. In particular, our flat horses have done very well. Trainer Václav Luka jnr has won a lot of races on the flat in France this year and, by our standards, a remarkable armount of prize money.More about these successes after the end of the year.

The only thing that I have covered fairly fully in recent weeks has been the expedition to Cheltenham undertaken by two Czech-trained horses, Delight My Fire and Taurito, both trained by Radim Bodlák. Delight My Fire appeared to be going well when she fell five from home in the Crystal Cup race. The warm welcome given to the Czechs by Cheltenham racecourse was very pleasing. With her Swedish jockey, Niklas Lovén, and with her record of good performances at Wroclaw racecourse, Delight My Fire attracted attention to her race at Cheltenham not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Sweden and Poland.

The expedition drew attention to the Crystal Cup, and raised hopes that other Czech-trained horses will run in Crystal Cup races and travel to Cheltenham in the future. Our best crosscountry chasers will continue to focus on peaking for the Velka Pardubicka, but there are some Crystal Cup races that could be included in the preparation of VP contenders. There will surely be Czech runners in the Cystal Cup race at Wroclaw next June (Delight My Fire’s programme for 2017 has both the Crystal Cup race at Wroclaw and the Wielka Wroclawska, early in September, also at Wroclaw, pencilled in). Some of the other Crystal Cup races could also be fitted in to the schedule of a Velka Pardubicka contender. Delight My Fire’s participation at Cheltenham was well publicized before the race and was praised after the race in the UK.

There is an interview on the Dostihový svět Czech language webpages with Dalibor Török, who has taken over as trainer for Jiří Travnicek at Zhoř. I will find time to translate it at some time. Dalibor has a good career behind him as a jockey, a trainer and, more recently, as a television pundit. With good horses to train, he is likely to do well.

Another interview that I will translate in due course is with Kateřina Hlubučková, who was our top female rider on the flat this year. She works in Martina Růžičková’s stable, with a trainer committed to giving good opportunities to talented girls. Martina not only won the Velka Pardubicka this year with Charme Look, but also had some above-average flat horses for Kateřina to ride.

The second half of December is usually a quiet time for me, and I hope to be able to fulfill the undertakings give above to do some translations and provide some further information on this site.