The end of September and the first half of October was a busy period for me, and the October Newsletter failed to appear – unless you consider a brief apology for its non-appearance to be a satisfactory replacement. Late September/early October is a key period every year in the work of a university international officer, and the busiest time at work coincided this year with the weekend before the Velka Pardubicka, when, among other things, I translate quite considerable parts of the Velka Pardubicka racecard. Then comes the Velka Pardubicka weekend, when there are better things to do than sit down and write a monthly newsletter.

Anyway, the VP racecard came out, I think, in good English. The Velka Pardubicka weekend went pretty well, though there were some people I unfortunately did not meet up with. I wrote my first impressions about the race on this site, and just a couple of days ago, I wrote my reflections on the race, with the benefit of three weeks of hindsight. It has taken me a long time to watch, re-watch and write about the six-and-a-half hours of Czech Television coverage of the race, but I finally posted my comments on the television marathon yesterday. Now, if I can post the November 2017 newsletter within the next 40 hours, I will actually be ahead of the game!

We have only two remaining race meetings this year – on the first Saturday in November at Kolesa, and a week after that at Most. The most recent weekend illustrates why our racecourses are reluctant to put on meetings at the end of October and into November. October 29^th was a very windy day, with a big wind-chill factor, at Most, and only a small crowd turned out. I had arranged to be in the Club, where I was as snug as a bug in a rug. I was going to say that I was aware of and sympathetic with the sufferings of hoi polloi, as I could see them through our windows, huddled against the storm in their threadbare coats. However, the truth is that when I did put my head outside the door of the Club, I found that the reality was shockingly much worse than my empathy had imagined.

In the seventh race, a swirling sleetstorm began just as the horses lined up for the start, and most of the race was invisible to the spectators, though I think the jockeys were able to see where they were going. It took the television cameramen a while to locate the horses. I was glad there were only four horses and riders in the race, and that the four riders were all the toughest of the tough, the most likely to survive in those conditions – the kind of riders who were probably thinking to themselves, “These are really tough conditions. This is when the tough get going, so I fancy my chances!” The riders were Marcel Novák, Sertash Ferhanov, Martin Liška, and Josef Borč. They all got round safely, and that is the order in which they finished. On the same day, the last race meeting of the season in Slovakia was called off, due to waterlogging and an unpromising weather forecast, and it will now be run on Sunday, November 5th.

Marcel Novák now has an unassailable lead in the Czech jumps jockeys’ championship, and Sertash Ferhanov will almost certainly finish second. During the coverage of the Velka Pardubicka on Czech Television, Libor Šimůnek congratulated Marcel on his big lead in the jockeys’ championship, and added that, if you had told him a dozen years ago that Marcel would be our champion jumps jockey in 2017, he would have been very surprised. Libor pointed out that Marcel has now made himself into a very good rider, and keeps himself in particularly good shape. I have read that he is the best footballer in the jumps jockeys’ team (Taxis), which again beat the eventers’ team (Oxer) in the annual challenge match recently. Our other top jumps jockeys nowadays ride mainly or frequently abroad, in Italy and sometimes in France, and are engaged by top Czech trainers, and in Josef Bartoš’s case, by the top Italian trainer. Marcel Novák is famous for his loyalty to the small trainers who have given him rides all along. He has in addition ridden 8 winners this year for his partner Lenka Kvapilová, which has put her into 5th place in our jumps trainers’ championship. Most of her wins have come in very modest races, but on VP day Player won the championship race for 5-y-o crosscountry chasers.  

Marcel Novák has achieved his first championship, at the age of 41. He rides mainly here and at Wroclaw, where our smaller trainers also send their horses, but he has not ridden much in Italy or in France. I think he has been champion jumps jockey in Poland at least once in  the past. Racing in Italy and in France is mainly for our big trainers, though ambitious and curious small trainers have also been giving it a try. Marcel probably does not gain a place in our top five jumps jockeys, but I should say he is in 6th place and moving upwards. Only a few of our jumps trainers retain jockeys that are committed to riding for them. However, up-and-coming trainers Lenka Kvapilová and Štěpanka Myšková have a hold on their partners, Marcel Novák and Jaroslav Myška. It is no coincidence that these two lady trainers, with full access to top jockeys, have had a lot of success this season. Štěpanka’s professional success has been dealt with in http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/7688

Jockey loyalty is a hot topic in Czech racing. I have alluded to it from time to time. Charme Look’s trainer Martina Růžičková is often at the centre of the discussion. She was disappointed when Jan Faltejsek accepted an offer to ride for French trainer Guillaume Macaire, when she considered him honour-bound to wait and see if she would offer him the ride on her horse -last year's winner, in this year’s VP http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/7688. She also thought it was disappointing, a year ago, that Kateřina Hlubučková, our most successful female rider in 2016, decided to leave for Newmarket for the winter months, instead of staying up in the hills to the south-east of Prague to freeze and muck out her horses for modest wages. Martina and most of the other trainers are beginning to recognize that our good riders now have attractive options abroad, and an EU passport. The old assumption that our top riders will continue loyally to tip their caps to Czech owners and trainers, and be grateful for the limited opportunities offered for 7 months of the year by Czech racing, is nowadays fitting only for the reminiscences of old trainers about the ‘good old days’!

And now I will turn to some broader questions raised by the 2017 Velka Pardubicka.

A perennial question among the Czech horseracing community is, Do we need foreign horses in the race? In the short term, the answer is that the race can continue even without them. VP day has become a national event, and for years to come, all grandstand tickets will be sold out before the runners and riders are announced. The television audience probably is also not too concerned about foreign horses, and would prefer a Czech winner. Of course, it was fine this year to have a valiant Czech jockey and a valiant Váňa-trained horse overcome a good French-trained horse and an English jockey. Nevertheless, I think that the three good French horses that came over, and in particular the fine performance by Urgent de Gregain and his English jockey, Felix de Giles, added a lot to the race. The fact that Váňa’s horse beat off such a strong invader made the 2017 Velka a vintage renewal of the race. Any major sports event has to be international these days. The presence in the VP field of good foreign-trained horses and good Swedish, French and British jockeys was good for the race, as Josef Bartoš had pointed out in a press conference in Prague before the race.

I have long been in favour of cutting down the ploughed fields at Pardubice racecourse, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the repeated changes of surface and changes of going must be a threat to horsesʼ legs, which have to support such a heavy animal moving at speed and, in crosscountry racing, frequently twisting and turning. Secondly, the plough is most often unpleasantly dusty, sometimes unpleasantly muddy, and only occasionally between these two ugly extremes. Thirdly, nothing is ever allowed to take root in the plough. In some places the soil has turned to sand, and in other places to clay. The desertified soil is impervious, and the rain is unable to pass through and into the ground. When it rains, the water lies on the compacted desertified surface, and the conditions become muddy, as they did on Velka Pardubicka day, even though there had not been an extreme amount of rain. When I walked the course the day before the race, the grass was not soft, but there were already pools lying on the plough. In the 24 hours between then and the VP, there was a fair amount of rain. However the muddiness of the 2017 VP was caused mainly by pooling on the ploughed fields. My suggestion is that Pardubice racecourse should quite rapidly start reducing the amount of plough, and end up with just a few bits of it remaining, for the sake of tradition. I would begin by grassing over the entire area behind the copse, which is now mainly ploughed. It is just ugly, and it serves no purpose.

Sadly, if you ask the Czech man or woman in the street, or the average mainstream journalist, to name the best current Czech steeplechase jockey, he or she will promptly come up with the name Josef Váňa, and then, probably, Marek Stromský, the unluckiest jockey in the history of the world. Anyone who knows anything about the sport will tell you that we currently have five Czech international jumps jockeys who are a class or two above our valiant jockeys of yesteryear, including even Josef Váňa and Marek Stromský. Josef Bartoš has ridden more winners than any other Czech jumps jockey in history, and is one of the great present-day Czech sportsmen. The others who have shared the Czech jumps jockeys’ championship for the last dozen years, Jaroslav Myška, Josef Váňa junior and Jan Kratochvíl, are also highly respected by anyone who knows anything about international steeplechasing [there are not many of us, admittedly]. Váňa junior and Kratochvíl are both still only 26 years old. Jan Faltejsek, winning jockey in the VP in 2013 – 2015 and in 2016, is the equal-second most successful jockey in the history of the race. He too is much sought after in those countries where Czech-born jockeys are appreciated. The time to present the VP to the Czech public as the race in which Josef Váňa rides in the colours of Železník or Tiumen has passed. Váňa has now trained the winner of the race ten times, and it is as a trainer and as a personality that, we hope, he will continue to be the greatest for years to come.

Normally, the fields for the side races on Velka Pardubicka day are quite big, but they were comparatively small this year. When a television viewer asked for an explanation of this, Libor Šimunek said that it was not significant. Some horses that might have run were unfit, and more owners and trainers than before send their good horses to run abroad, so that the VP meeting is no longer the only option for them early in October. I think this is probably a correct answer. Plenty of horses do not like the ploughed fields at Pardubice, and some owners and trainers, too. They therefore choose to run their horses elesewhere. Some owners like to own, or happen to own, bigger, faster chasers that run best on galloping grass-track circuits. The twists and turns of the Pardubice cross-country course are more suited to smaller, handier horses, like No Time to Lose.

Nevertheless, it would be dangerous to ignore the small fields on Velka Pardubicka day. Do they not possibly indicate that crosscountry chasing might be on the way out, if no appropriate steps are taken now? Crosscountry chasing certainly shrank or closed down a long time ago in the UK and Ireland, unless we consider point-to-points as cross-country races. In the Czech Republic, it is the Velka Pardubicka that underpins crosscountry chasing. Without the VP, it might die away quite quickly. However, there is no question of the VP being under threat in the short or medium term.

Nevertheless, things change. Forty years ago the VP was slowly-run contest over fearsome obstacles for horses that were jumpers. Nowadays, it is a race for much faster horses over much less fearsome obstacles. It has been a priority for the Pardubice racecourse management to reduce the danger for the horses, though the variety of obstacles and the changes in the ground remain a major challenge even for the best horses. Myself, I am no traditionalist, and I am no fan of so-called ‘extreme sportsʼ. I would like the Velka Pardubicka to become safer for horses, for example by reducing the ploughed fields, and even by taking out the water jumps. Of course, that would make it into a faster race, and less like the Velkas of the past. The fact that the races are faster makes them less safe. Hmmm.

Our season is now virtually over, with just two small meetings to be held. Will Váňa win the Czech jumps trainersʼ championship yet again? He has won almost nine times as much prizemoney here this year as Helena Vocásková, whose yard is just down the road from Pardubice racecourse. Helena Vocásková has won one more race, they both have the same number of second places, and Váňa has had more third places. In an interview, Váňa said that the Czech championship is not a priority for him, but I note that he has a lot of runners in the last five jumps races of the season, at Kolesa, on Saturday November 4th. He has never yet accepted defeat lightly, and the contest at Kolesa is likely to be decided as the sun starts going down, late on Saturday afternoon. Like last year, Jan Rája is in a close contest for the flat jockeys’ championship. Last year he just beat Bauyrzhan Murzabayev. This year, with 11 more flat races to be won, he is narrowly ahead of Jaromir Šafář.

There are other things that could be discussed here - but you have already done very well to read this far. Firstly, Czech-trained horses will continue to run abroad. Only road closures will stop Josef Váňa, and other trainers will keep some of their horses in training for as long as they can. Secondly, there is good news from Šlušovice racecourse. This is the biggest racecourse in the eastern part of the country, and it is good news for owners, trainers and fans that Zdeněk Karlach hopes to put on as many as six days of racing there in 2018, with revived support and cooperation from the local authorities.

However, the long winter months are at the door, and I will now have to stop using up talking points, and start storing up scarce items to fill the winter newsletters.