*VP day 2018 was remarkably sunny and warm for mid October in the Czech Republic, and a massive crowd enjoyed a beautiful day at the racecourse, though, to tell the truth, it would have been more comfortable if fewer people had been there. Three weeks after this race, our season will be over. With climate change, we would be able to continue right through November, most years, but the racecourses are not motivated to put on meetings on chilly November days.

*The last meeting of the season at Pardubice is on Saturday, October 27^th. The main race will be the Tzigane Du Berlais Stakes, Category II – an opportunity for horses that dropped out in the early part of their race on VP weekend to earn their winter oats.

*A better opportunity for some horses will be in one of the two Category I races on the last day of our season. This will be held on Sunday, November 4th, at Slušovice. The longer Category I races will be the Velká slušovická, over 5 200 metres. Slušovice is a similar type of course to Wroclaw, and the last three winners of this race were Wroclaw course specialists Pareto (2017), Delight My Fire (2016) and Sztorm (2015).

*After the end of our season, there will still be plenty of opportunity for our chasers to run in Italy and in France. Trainer Josef Váňa is leading the Italian jumps trainers’ championship again this year, and will presumably have a considerable number of horses ready to race in the winter months, especially those that have been waiting several months for some soft ground. Most of our leading jumps trainers will send horses out after the end of our 2018 season and before the beginning of our 2019 season to run in Italy or France, or perhaps in Germany, which is closer, but offers lower prizemoney and only a limited amount of jumps racing these days.

*When he was interviewed on television after his horse, Tzigane Du Berlais, won the Velka, president of the Jockey Club Jiří Charvát pointed out that the horse had only run twice this year prior to the VP, and that he would probably have another race in him before the end of this year. He specifically mentioned Cheltenham. His trainer, Pavel Tůma, in an interview published on the Czech language pages of Dostihový svět, stated that if English horses want to take on his horses, they should come to Pardubice, and that Tzigane’s future is at Pardubice and in the Velka. Pavel Tůma sometimes says things to the press that would be better unsaid. Before the declarations to run for the 2017 Derby, he said that there was no point running all three Charvát-owned horses in the Derby, and that Joseph ws no good and should be the one to drop out. Josef went on to win the Derby – though he has achieved nothing at all since then, so most of us agree that Tůma was right, but would have done better to keep quiet.

*For the fifth time in the last 7 runnings, Jan Faltejsek was the winning jockey in the Velka Pardubicka. This win on Tzigane Du Berlais was probably his best ride. In his three wins on Orphée Blins, it was mainly a matter of pointing the mare in the right direction and holding on tight - in retrospect, at least. The same is true for Charme Look. On Tzigane, a very patient ride was required, and Jan did a great job, hitting the front less than 200 metres from home and winning decisively. Jan missed the race in 2017. Perhaps his best VP ride of all in recent years was in 2015, when he managed to take 3^rd place on Universe of Gracie!

*Jan Faltejsek missed the Velka in 2017 because of severe back pains. He rode in the first race on Velka day, but realized that he would not be able to give Virtus d’Estruval the support he needed. Jan had an operation on his back in the winter, and praised both the hospital and his surgeon and his physiotherapist for their work, which has enabled him to continue this year as a jockey. After a number of years in France and, mainly, in northern England, Jan returned to the Czech Republic at the beginning of this year. He has been riding here and also frequently in France and Italy, and a couple of times in Germany. He is in great demand as a jockey in central Europe, and I do not quite understand why he never broke through in the UK, where, perhaps, trainers wrongly thought he does not speak English well. Jan has been training horses here, as well as riding. I note that his father, Jan snr., who is a vet based at Kladruby nad Labem, near Pardubice, has taken out a trainer’s licence this year and has three horses in his yard.

*Steeplechasing is a tough sport. In the 4^th race on VP day, Ján Mach was unseated at a fence behind the copse, and got his legs caught up in the stirrups. He was dragged along behind the horse for a long way. I cannot say how far, as the television cameras averted their view after he had been dragged for at least 50 metres. There are differing rumours, and no authoritative reports yet, about his condition, but it certainly looked very ugly and very dangerous. The strongest rumours seem to suggest that he is OK. Ján Mach is a vet and has a trainer’s licence and a professional rider’s licence, and his obsessive ambition has been to ride in, get round and win the Velka Pardubicka. He managed to qualify his own horse, Mileryt for this year’s Velka, but he was unable to ride in the race. As expected the horse, which was ridden by Michal Kubík, was hopelessly outclassed and was pulled up about two thirds of the way round, when he had already been tailed off for quite a while. Nevertheless, it was a great pity that Ján Mach missed this chance to ride the horse that carried number 1, and therefore led the parade in front of the massive crowd before the race, and that he missed the chance to celebrate the fact that Mileryt won the prize for the best turned out horse in the Velka.

*There were eight non-Czech jockeys in VP 2018, and they had mixed fortunes. UK-based Felix de Giles, who had finished in 2nd place in VP 2017, jocked poor Thomas Boyer off Templář at the last moment. However, Felix de Giles came off at the Taxis, fence no. 4. Leighton Aspell rode Vajgaros for Slovak trainer, Jaroslav Brečka. It was Aspell’s fifth ride in the afternoon for trainer Brečka. He finished 4th in the opening race, but was parted from his equine partner on each of the four other occasions. In the Velka, and in at least one of the other races, this Irish jockey was, ironically enough, dislodged at the Irish Bank. Obstacle no. 5. Swedish jockey Niklas Lovén’s mount Delight My Fire fell in the duststorm at the Popkovice Turn, fence no. 6. British jockey James Best finished hopelessly tailed off in 11^th place on Ribelino. Czech-based Bulgarian jockey Sertash Ferhanov finished 10^th on Pareto, a long way ahead of poor Ribelino but even further behind the leaders. The horse lost a lot of ground early on and kept going gamely, if in vain. Slovak jockey Lukáš Matuský finished 8th on Vajgaros, but we consider Matuský one of our own, as he has been working and riding here for years. The other two foreign jockeys both gave their horses every chance to have won, if they had been good enough on the day. Former multiple Italian jumps jockeys’ champion Raffaele Romano got the ride on Zarif when his normal jockey, Josef Bartoš, was claimed to ride Vicody in the race. Zarif has finished 6th-2nd-3rd-4th, and now 4th again, in the last five runnings of the VP – there are always a few horses in the race that are too good for him, but only a few. The most successful foreign rider was British jockey Thomas Garner. He finished 3rd on 770:10 chance Stretton. Thomas Garner has ridden at Bratislava or at Pardubice in each of the last six seasons, and has worked on learning the unique Pardubice course. He made a good showing on Stretton.

*Josef Bartoš rode Vicody, which broke a leg when he fell at the Taxis and had to be put down. The previous horse to be killed at the Taxis was Zulejka, in 2014. She was also ridden by Josef Bartoš.

*Josef Bartoš and Jan Faltejsek were the only two jockeys in this year’s Velka to have ridden a winner in the VP before. Josef Bartoš won on Decent Fellow (2006) and on Sixteen (2008), on one of her winning runs.

*I am told that Jaroslav Myška is now the jockey that has ridden in the Velka the most times (18 times) without ever winning the race. I think he has also not finished 2^nd, either, but he has been in the prizemoney repeatedly, including this year, when he again finished 7^th on Bridgeur. (sorry, but I have not made time to verify this trivia item, but it came to me from the ultimate VP geek, who was already an anorak in the good old days, before computers turned anoraks into geeks.)

*In September, two famous VP personalities each celebrated a big anniversary. František Vítek, who rode two winners of the VP (Koran, 1963 and Mocná, 1965) and later became a record-breaking trainer for the Czechoslovak Derby (six winners, which was the record until it was broken by František Holčák), celebrated his 80th birthday. He was invited to draw the numbers to be carried by the horses in the Velka Pardubicka, and appeared to be in good health and spirits. Václav Chaloupka, who celebrated his 70th birthday in September, was the first jockey in the history of the VP to ride 4 winners (Korok, 1969, 1970 and 1972, and Václav, 1977). Josef Váňa took all his records away, except that only Václav Chaloupka has ever won the VP on a horse with the same name as himself. A couple of weeks ago, a book by Petr Feldstein, based on interviews and conversations with Václav Chaloupka, appeared in Czech language, under the title Dávat Koním Křídla (Giving Wings to Horses). Václav Chaloupka is fondly remembered by ladies of a certain age as a daring jockey and an elegant heartthrob of the 1970s. He still trains some horses and, like František Vítek, he is regularly to be seen at our racetracks.

*Next year’s Velka Pardubicka will be held on the second Sunday in October, that is, October 13th, 2019.

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Photo of Tzigane Du Berlais and Jan Faltejsek, winners of the 2018 Velka Pardubicka. Photo by Petr Guth