Our 2018 horseracing season started at Lysá nad Labem on Easter Monday, April 2nd. The really cold weather in the second half of February continued into March, and the grass at Lysá had had little chance to recover from the winter. Nevertheless, the opening day brought pleasant weather and attracted a good crowd. Throughout April, the weather has been unusually warm and mainly dry, and by the end of the month nature has made up for lost time.

Fields for most of our race days early in April were small, as the conditions for preparing the horses had been unsatisfactory in February and March. In addition, we seem to have limited numbers of horses for higher-category races. More and more owners and trainers take their better horses abroad to run for better prize money, especially in France, on the flat, and in Italy, over fences.

The focus in April is mainly on preparing 3-y-os for the classics, which, as I point out every year, come far too early in a colt or filly’s life. The Czech One Thousand Guineas will be run on Sunday, May 6th at Prague Velká Chuchle, and our Two Thousand Guineas will be a week later. There will be very few further opportunities here for the best fillies, and the colts too will have to continue their careers either abroad or over a longer distance. We hope the owners of our best horses will want to find races here for them to run in in the autumn or as older horses.

The biggest star in Czech racing in April 2018 has been apprentice rider David Liška. He rode ten winners here before the end of April, and is clearly a major talent at the age of 18. We are all hopeful that he will not have weight problems (he rides at 55 kg), and that he will continue to develop as well as he has since he started riding winner after winner, in good style, last September. He has now ridden a total of 31, and his rider's allowance has come down from 2.5 kg to 1.5 kg in races at Category III and higher.  

Since the announcement that a billionaire developer, Radovan Vítek, had bought Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse on December 19th, 2017, our Dostihový svět website has been running an opinion poll on the following topic: “Was the change in the owner of Chuchle racecourse good news for you?” Currently, the votes stand at Yes: 24%, No: 48%, Don’t know: 29%. Some time ago, I voted for Don’t know, and I remain in the Don’t know camp.

If we had had a poll a year ago on the topic: “Would you like to see a change in the ownership of Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse”, Yes would have won pretty easily, and many of the Turf PRAHA shareholders who have sold their shares in the racecourse would also have voted in favour of the change. The limited enthusiasm for the change in ownership that has actually taken place is therefore not exactly a vote of confidence in the new owner.

My reason for voting for Don’t know was that all I know about Radovan Vítek is what I can find with a quick google search. Born in 1970 or 1971, according to the source you believe, he became rich very quickly during the period of privatization, first in Slovakia and later in the Czech Republic. A messy divorce that obsessed the boulevard press; bought a house in Surrey off Ringo Starr. It could happen to any billionaire.

At the first Velká Chuchle race day of the new season, on April 8th, I was pleased to find that, even after the change in ownership, all racegoers still have full access to a dry place, with seating, inside the grandstand, and free access to seats with a good view of the races. In addition, some long overdue refurbishment of this area, where ordinary racegoers assemble, had been carried out.

However, buying Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse is not a simple matter. Almost five years ago, I wrote about the complicated ownership of the racecourse http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/cs/node/2109, at that time with reference to the conflicts between the racecourse and the Jockey Club, and also the willingness of Turf PRAHA to hand the organization of events at the racecourse to anyone interested in taking on the task. There were a number of companies and subsidiaries that owned (parts of) the racecourse, that organized events at the racecourse, that owned the betting rights, that owned the betting company, that organized the betting, and further companies and subsidiaries that offered, or had at one time offered, unspecified services in connection with horses, racing, and other things. A small group of people were engaged in several of these companies and subsidiaries, and, at that time, were also engaged in the work of the Jockey Club.

I do not know exactly what Radovan Vítek bought, but it seems that his company or companies not only own the racecourse, but also organize the events held at the course, and own and run Betino, the on-course betting company. In the April 2018 newsletter on this site, which I posted just before the racing season began, I reported that there was some uncertainty about the betting at our racecourses this season. Martin Pecka, the new manager of Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse, seems also to be the manager of Betino, which has organized the betting at our racecourses for a number of years. He seems to have been advised that the way racecourse betting has been handled in the past does not fully conform with the law. The law is in any case fuzzy, and Czech law on lotteries and gambling is not mainly concerned with facilitating small-time gambling on horse races at a dozen racecourses. At Velká Chuchle’s second meeting of the season, only fixed odds bets on wins and places was offered. No totalisator betting (i.e. on duos and tricasts) was available. For technical reasons, we were told. We have also heard that Betino will only offer odds at just five racecourses this year, at Prague Velká Chuchle, Pardubice, Karlovy Vary, Most and Lysá.

Last Saturday, there was a meeting at Brno. I think that no betting was available at this meeting, though I was not there to see with my own eyes. I read somewhere that equipment costing CzK 50 000 (about EUR 2 000) would need to be installed at each racecourse in order to conform with the law. For small racecourses holding one or two days of racing per year, this would be a killer, for betting, if not for the racecourse itself. We hear that negotiations are taking place with the authorities so that racecourse betting can be run on a proper legal basis and can produce a reasonable return for horseracing.

The three main Czech betting companies, Tipsport, Fortuna and Synottip, are not very excited by Czech horseracing. One of them has been offering odds this year, but I think only on the main races, and only on the day before the races, and it has not taken bets at the racecourse. I do not think that offshore online betting companies take bets on Czech racing, but in any case it would be illegal in the Czech Republic to bet with these companies, if they are not registered with the Czech authorities.

The dream that Czech racing could generate considerable funding from betting seems to be as far away as ever. That happens in countries where a monopoly totalisator is run for the benefit of racing, and the state authorities facilitate the profitable operation of the totalisator in support of a healthy horseracing industry. In general, there is quite good government support here for sport, but not much of it goes to horseracing.  

Jumps racing does not begin in earnest here until May, though Josef Váňa’s horses have been dominating the sport in Italy since January. On the public holiday on May 1st, the First of May Steeplechase will be run at Lysá. A week later, on the May 8th public holiday, there is a meeting at Pardubice that features a Category I crosscountry chase and a Category I classical steeplechase.

I hear plenty of English-speaking voices everywhere in Prague, including the racecourse. I am glad people find their way to the town, which is truly worth a visit, and to our racecourses. Everything is very accessible, and the beer is not the only inexpensive thing. These are good times in the Czech Republic, so do join in.