The April newsletter got delayed this year, as I have been very busy helping colleagues to get grant applications in, on time and in good English. Having missed my self-imposed deadline of midnight on March 31^st, my next target is to post the newsletter before the Grand National, at 6.15 pm CET on Saturday, April 6^th. Failing that, before setting out for Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse for the opening meeting (flat racing) of our 2019 horseracing season, on Sunday April 7^th.

The first race on Sunday is at 2 p.m. Two traditional Category I races head the card on Sunday. The 92^nd running of the Gomba Handicap, over 1200 metres for 4-y-o and older has been won in the last two years by Master of Gold, trained by Greg Wroblewski. The horse, now 8-y-o, is in the field again on Sunday.  The other feature race is the 61^st running of the Česká Spořitelna Factoring April Grand Prix, 1800 metres, 4-y-o+.

The weather here in March was sensible enough, with no major late frosts - so far - in the lower-lying parts of the country, and no series of mild nights and warm days that would make nature think, early in March, that summer was just round the corner. There were some pleasantly warm days at the end of March, and at the beginning of April. There was some rain, but the water table is still very low here, after a series of dry years.

After the five-month winter break, the Czech racing community is impatient for the new season to begin. The Fitmin - Turf Magazín website has published 40 articles in a series under the title Trainers Before the Season. This is a perennial great labour of love by Michaela Zemanová. It must have involved a lot of travel. She has certainly done a lot of discussing and gathering photographs, and a lot of writing. I have to admit that I have only skimmed them. I will try to make time to read Michaela’s articles, and try to judge whether Czech trainers, taken as a whole, have the same hopes and fears and plans as they have had every year, or whether there seem to be some new trends. There will certainly be a lot of snippets of information that I will be pleased to know about and share with you.

The racing calendar for the whole season is posted on the Jockey Club’s excellent website http://www.dostihyjc.cz/dostihy.php. The site is mainly in Czech, but with a bit of persistence you will be able to get a lot of very accurate information out of it, even if you speak no Czech. The number of planned racedays is lower than for some years. The number of horses in training here has been going down slowly but steadily for a number of years, and a significant number of horses, especially our very best, run exclusively or mainly abroad. The Czech racecourses have justifiably decided that fewer runners means fewer races. The situation in Czech horseracing was last healthy and thriving in the 1930s, and the sport has continued since then to struggle from one season to the next. The 2019 season is likely to be far from the most problematic in the last 80 years, but it will also not be a year of plenty. At a press conference at the end of March, president of the Jockey Club Jiři Charvát pointed out that there have never in the past been so many Czech-trained horses with a rating of over 100, and Czech-trained horses have never before won so much prizemoney outside the country as in 2018. At the same time, prizemoney at the Czech racecourses remains very low, and the racecourses continue to be shabby. The Czech government still shows no sign of helping our racing to make considerable income from betting. The Czech authorities, rightly in my opinion, regard gambling as a problem, and the idea that they should facilitate betting on horseracing, as a special case, does not enjoy a lot of political or public support.

Last year, Czech-trained horses won considerably more prizemoney outside the country, mainly in France and Italy, than was on offer as prizemoney in all races in the Czech Republic. I presume that more and more of our trainers will be planning to take their horses to run abroad this year, though others will continue to declare that their ambition is to win races inside the country, preferably with Czech-bred horses.

Can I draw your attention again to the major Anglo-Czech publishing event in March 2019? If you look at recent entries on these pages, you will find several items about Richard Askwith’s biography of Countess Lata Brandisová (picture), under the title UNBREAKABLE. She rode the winner of the Velka Pardubicka in 1937. She is still the only woman to have ridden the winner of the Velka and, remarkably, Richard is the first person to have written a book about this extraordinary and inspiring personality. I warmly recommend the book to you. I understand that Richard will be signing copies at the Grand National at Aintree, and that a Czech language translation should come out later this year.

Stories have been spread far and wide in recent months about so-called threats to the 2019 Velka Pardubicka. The first story started out from the fact that the long-time main sponsor of the race, the Česká pojišt’ovna insurance company, announced at the end of November 2018 that it will not continue as main sponsor in 2019. The second story started out from the fact that a skating rink purchased by the Pardubice municipality was installed on the finishing straight at Pardubice racecourse. The skating rink remained there from December until mid March, and was rumoured to have destroyed the grass. I published an article on this website stating categorically that, one way or another, prizemoney for the 2019 Velka Pardubicka will be gathered. And that racetrack will be raceable on May 8^th, for the first meeting of the 2019 season at Pardubice, and will be fine for the Velka, on Sunday, October 13^th. The finishing straight was covered by a layer of sand, on top of which the temporary skating rink was placed. Grass that has been covered up for three months does not look good when it is exposed again, it is true. However, the root system of an established piece of turf is very tough, and it will recover and regrow strongly in a matter of a few weeks at this time of the year.

It was suggested to me that my article on this site denying that the 2019 Velka is under threat failed to point out the outrageousness of a great big skating rink being set up on the finishing straight of the Pardubice racecourse, and failed to criticize the ‘culprits’. True enough, it was a wrong decision to put the skating rink there. However, my focus was on stating clearly and categorically that the Velka is under no threat either from lack of a sponsor or from damage to the racetrack, and will surely take place on Sunday, October 13^th.

Now, here in the newsletter, I do raise that question. It is very strange that the Pardubice Municipality, a shareholder in the racecourse, should think that the finishing straight at the racecourse was a suitable place for their skating rink. It was equally strange that Dostihový spolek, the main shareholder, responsible for managing the racecourse, did not resist the idea and did not ensure that the skating rink was erected somewhere more suitable. An interview with Jiří Janda, head groundsman at Pardubice racecourse for the last seven years, appeared on April 1^st in iDNES https://www.idnes.cz/pardubice/zpravy/zavodiste-pardubice-spravce-drahy-janda-kone-travnik-cilova-rovina.A190331_211707_pardubice-zpravy_skn. Jiří Janda said that the racecourse seems to be OK, and will recover easily enough, but that of course he does not want the skating rink on the racetrack again, next winter or at any time. He points out that there is a suitable enough location for it on the car park just beyond the parade ring.

At the end of February, in the Newsletter, I wrote that “a month from now, Britain will presumably have left the the European Union”. Although I am passionately and wholly against leaving the European Union, it seems to me that it is going to happen, so we might as well get on with it. First, of course, we must make sure that Brexit does not mean Brexit. Then we can agree to “commit Brexit”, and then, after “the result of the referendum and the votes of the 17 million have been respected”,  we can immediately start campaigning to rejoin the Union. The past month has shown the British democratic system in collapse. It has confirmed that we now urgently need a Bill of Rights and a written constitution that will bring our democracy into the modern age. We also need to educate the people. It really is not easy to do these things, when everything is being done against the clock. The Brexit process, the deadfully poor management of it, the tradition in the UK of dictatorship of the majority, and the lack of effective checks and balances on the power of the prime minister, have all been highlighted. Brexit has led to a consitutional crisis,  because  it has shone a bright light on so many dysfunctionalities and on so many archaisms that no longer work. The next months and years in the UK are likely to continue to be interesting.   

The situation in Czech racing, in general, at the beginning of the new horseracing season is not very bad, but also not too good. Racing fans can look forward to some good afternoons out in the fresh air, and the horses will exercise their charm as usual. However, those running the sport and also the horseracing professionals know that the dreams of March will come true only for a few, and that most will have another season where survival will be an achievement.

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The picture is of Countess Lata Brandisová, winning rider of the Velka pardubicka in 1937.