Koplík: Where to go after Ascot? Hongkong, Dubai, or a winter break?

The sensational performance of Czech-trained Subway Dancer in finishing third in the Champion Stakes last Saturday at Ascot has been a big story of the last weekend, even in the UK. Subway Dancer, trained by Zdeno Koplík, has a reasonably good record in France, but nothing to suggest he was good enough to be placed in a group 1 race at Ascot. As they entered the finishing straight, jockey Radek Koplík, one of the trainer’s younger brothers, had Subway Dancer at the rear of the field. To our amazement, the horse produced a strong finishing burst to finish third, as Cracksman and Frankie Dettori pulled well away from the field.

The successful team arrived back in the Czech Republic on Monday, and after this successful excursion, there is the pleasant dilemma about what to do next. Should the horse be the first trained in the Czech Republic to go to the Hong Kong International Races megameeting in December? This is a new issue for Czech racing, that nobody has had to deal with in the past, and there may not be any follow-up this year, either.

“It was a truly complicated trip to Britain,” Zdeno Koplík points out. “Last Tuesday, when we were beginning to think about setting off, we received a call from England saying that we weren’t going anywhere, and that our horse couldn’t run because he had not fulfilled the conditions that the Jockey Club had sent us. However, we hadn’t received any conditions from the Jockey Club, so we had nothing that we could comply with.”  The Brits finally conceded that the Koplíks could fulfill the conditions by submitting Subway Dancer to a doping test on the Wednesday in Newmarket.

“We’d originally wanted to leave later, but we had to get everything together in a hurry and leave. In Newmarket, everything had been prepared, and he was even stabled in the box that Black Caviar had used, and the samples were taken. Until Friday, we didn’t know if he’d be allowed to run,” Zdeno Koplík recalls. The Czech representative finally got the green light, and with due publicity he presented himself perfectly.
“Third place is a perfect result. We hadn’t believed it could turn out that way,” the trainer admits. Of course, we were very pleased, and there was a lot of recognition in England, too. Nice things were said about the horse, and about Radek, too. There was a lot of interest and discussion, and it was even said that it was a good thing that we had diverted the attention of the local media, which had been concentrating on Gosden and O’Brien,”  Zdeno Koplík proudly said.

The totalizator paid out GBP 161 for a stake of GBP 10 for a place on Subway Dancer, and the horse may now face another challenge. “He’s been invited to Hongkong in December for the Hong Kong Cup, over 2000 metres,” Zdeno Koplík explains. “Of course, it’s attractive. None of us has travelled there, and the organizers pay all expenses for the foreign participants, which makes it interesting to run there from that point of view, too”. However, at the moment the trainer is not convinced that his horse should set out on this Asian adventure. 

“He’s already done a lot this year, and he’d need to leave quite soon, because of the quarantine requirements. It wouldn’t be easy for him. In addition, the track in Hongkong would be fast, and that’s not in his favour. It’s the owner’s decision, but my personal inclination would be not to go to Hongkong. He’s had a demanding programme, and a break might be the best thing for him”.

Even if the Hong Kong International Races are not to be the destination, the possibility of going for a race in Asia would not be abandoned. “He also has an invitation to Dubai, which is a more realistic opportunity,” says Zdeno Koplík, with reference to the plans for the most successful Czech runner until now in British racing.

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This article was written by Petr Guth for the Czech language pages of Dostihový svět. Photo of Zdeno Koplík by Petr Guth. Translation by Robin.

The Koplíks are a famous family in Czech racing. Before Zdeno became a trainer, he was a jumps jockey, and is one of many contenders for the unluckiest jockey in the history of the Velka Pardubicka. In 1995, when Charlie Mann won the race on It’s A Snip, the jockey on Vinny, which finished in second place, appeared to be hanging on for dear life rather than riding the mare out. He had in fact been riding for quite a distance with increasingly serious equipment failures, and did extraordinarily well to get to the finishing post without falling off.

Zdeno’s younger brothers, René and Radek are both now veteran jockeys. René has spent a lot of time riding abroad, while Radek has remained in the Czech Republic. Zdeno’s daughter, Ingrid Janáčková Koplíková, has ridden 74 winners, and is one of our leading lady jockeys.