Announcement of the Slušovice Horseracing Association about the 2017 season

Due to the fact that the municipal leaders in Slušovice have not yet finalized an agreement on renting the racecourse, we are currently unable to assess how the horseracing season at Slušovice racecourse will turn out. One thing is certain, however. The meeting announced for Saturday June 17^th, 2017, will not take place. Not only does the technical state of the unmaintained track make it impossible, but in addition - for the reasons given above – it has not been possible to finalize agreements with the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic and with longstanding and new sponsors. Currently, we cannot even count on financial contributions from the Zlin Region (in central east Moravia) and from the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, which had already been confirmed. At this time, we are not able to estimate what developments there will be.

President of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic Jiří Charvát has been informed in writing along these lines. The Town Council meeting on May 9^th did not produce any outcome, apart from attempts to keep postponing any kind of solution, and to create the impression that our association is responsible for the present situation. However, the converse is the case. We want to organize races, but without any technical equipment or staff we lack the basic prerequisites. Since 2006, we have been attempting not just to maintain the course, but gradually to improve it. However, the current situation is deteriorating, and is sending us into reverse. It is not clear to us what is going on, or who it is that benefits from the present situation.

Due to the unresolved situation, on Friday, May 12^th, the legally required proportion of the councillors of the Town of Slušovice handed in to the mayor’s office a request to convene a meeting of the Representatives of the Town, in accordance with the Law on Communities. The meeting was called because of the unresolved problems with the administration, the maintenance, the technical equipment and the staffing for running the Slušovice racecourse and golf course area. The mayor, Petr Hradecký, is required to call a meeting of the town council within 21 days. Separate consultations with representatives have suggested that a considerable majority of them will take part in the meeting, and a satisfactory solution to the problem is anticipated, as they are aware of the significance of the racecourse and the races for representing the town and the Zlin Region.

We regret that we are unable to honour our originally intended commitment to organize events at the racecourse, which we helped to reopen for racing. What we regret even more is that for apparently petty and perhaps personal reasons the racecourse is again heading into needless problems and into an uncertain future. We would have liked to be able to bring more positive news for fans of horseracing and for active participants in the sport, but unfortunately, it is beyond our abilities. We consider that we have done everything that was within our competence and our possibilities.

All we can do is to express to the racetrack and to all fans of racing at Slušovice the wish that we may meet again, in better times.

Slušovice, May 13^th, 2017, Zdeněk Karlach, Radek Vraj 

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This is the most sickening news. Zdeněk Karlach and Radek Vraj have headed the efforts to keep racing at Slušovice alive. Ever since the changes in 1989, there has a series of crises in Slušovice and at the racecourse. About ten years ago the course closed for a year or two, but thanks the efforts of Zdeněk Karlach and Radek Vraj, the town council at that time, and a team of local enthusiasts, a revival came about.

The racecourse was famous in the 1980s, when huge crowds would flock there to participate in the Slušovice miracle and purchase the electronic goods, and other remarkable products produced at the local agricultural cooperative and on sale on race days http://praguemonitor.com/2009/10/05/the-birth-czech-made-capitalism      https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/2014_828-03g_Bren.pdf. This was a remarkable and scarce socialist miracle in Czechoslovakia in the1970s and 1980s, and there has been a systematic attempt to destroy every trace of it. The racecourse is one of the main remaining memorials to JZD Slušovice, and is a national monument that should not be allowed to rot away.