Following the cancellation “for technical and financial reasons” of the race day at Lysá-nad-Labem on August 24, only 6 race meetings will be held in the Czech Republic in the month of August this year: at Slušovice (Aug 3rd, first race at 10 a.m.); at Karlovy Vary (Aug 4th and Aug 18th); at Pardubice (Aug 10th); at picturesque Netolice (Aug 11th); and at Most (August 31st). Plenty of Czech-trained horses are expected to run in races at nearby Bratislava, Wroclaw and Dresden, or further away in more distant parts of Germany, and in France and Italy. Entries of Czech-registered horses for races abroad can be found on http://www.dostihyjc.cz/aviza.php.

The most interesting meeting of the month is probably the day at Pardubice, which features the third of the four Qualification Races for the 2019 Velka Pardubicka. Only 9 entries have been made for this race, but they include Ange Guardian, winner of the June 2019 Qualification Race and of two qualification races in 2018. 2017 VP winner No Time To Lose has not run so far this year, and needs to complete the course on August 10 in order to qualify for the 2019 VP.  Templář is the only other entry for the race that is not already qualified for the big race on October 13th.

The numbers of entries for the VP itself and for each of the qualification races has been much lower than usual this year. However, the quality of the entries is good, and the May and June qualification races have both produced a good number of high-quality qualifiers. There is still plenty of time for more entries for the VP to be made. Supplementary entries are now much less expensive than they used to be, and they can be made until September 26th.  If No Time To Lose and Templář both qualify on August 10th, we can be fairly confident that the field for the big race will be worthy of the event. Especially if the horses entered by Emmanuel Clayeux and David Pipe come over for the race.  

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Photo: No Time To Lose, with Jan Kratchvíl, winner of VP 2017. Photo by Petr Guth.