The Most Popular Czech Horse Goes to Stud

The best Czech sprinter of the past years, Mikesh (Majestic Missile), has ended his racing career. The nine-year-old won eight of his 41 races and has earned EUR 65,000. Besides winning easily all major races in his home country over six furlongs, he scored four black-type places in Germany and Italy. He was the first Czech-trained horse to race in the Gr.2 Goldene Peitsche at Baden Baden, but his most favourite track was the straight course at Hoppegarten, Berlin, where he placed four years in a row in a listed race. “In my view, he was the best East European sprinter since Overdose,” says the German champion jockey Filip Minarik who has ridden him.

Mikesh, named after a famous language-endowed cat from a fairy-tale by painter Josef Lada, the famous illustration of the Good Soldier Schweik, was one of the most popular horses in the country and a truly people’s horse. He was popular thanks to his name, a Facebook profile with nearly 1,000 fans but also an unusual story. Bred by Irishman Kevin Foley, the bay colt was purchased for mere EUR 1,800 as an unbroken two-year-old. Contrary to many of his peers, he was not based in a professional racing stable, but trained by his owner in fields and meadows near the South-Bohemian town of Tabor, renowned for its Hussite past. The horse’s enormous popularity contributed to his sire, Majestic Missile, being imported to the Czech Republic.

Mikesh will be based with Josef Pšurný, Moravia. The fee has not been set yet.

 

For further details and queries please contact:

Martin Cáp, martin.rcf@gmail.com

Ladislav Nagy, lada.nagy@gmail.com

***

This is in fact a press release from the horse's devoted owners. Czech sprinting suffers from the fact that we have no functioning straight sprint course, and no proper races for a top sprinter to run in. Mikesh repesented Czech sprinting honorably for many years, especially in straight 1 000 metre races at Berlin Hoppegarten. Mikesh has certainly been our best sprinter since Scyris, maybe better than Scyris. However, Scyris was beaten out of sight by Overdose, as Mikesh no doubt would have been. Mikesh was a very popular racehorse, putting in really good performances until the age of 8, and not least because he so clearly brought much pleasure to his popular owners.