Racing in Germany enjoyed a boom in the 1990s. More recently, however, the number of race meetings, especially over fences, has declined, though the quality of German-bred and German-owned horses has remained high.

The following jockeys have said that they will come to Prague for the European Jockeys Cup meeting on Saturday, September 26^th

In these newsletters, I usually mention the weather in the past month, and quite often I begin with it. August has been a month of dramatic weather. We began the month with two weeks of extraordinarily hot and dry weather over the whole country. The water levels in the rivers, already low, got a lot lower, and the soil was very dry.

The race meeting at Pardubice on August 22nd offered nine races, each with a good-sized field, on a mild late summer afternoon, on a remarkably well turned-out racecourse.

UK jockey Felix de Giles will ride for the first time in the Czech Republic on Saturday, August 22^nd. He will ride three horses owned by DS Pegas and trained by Michal Lisek. He will be on the outsider Nana Angela, making her debut in the race for 3-y-o hurdlers. He will then ride Dorotka in the cross-country race for mares only.

This weekend there are two race meetings in the Czech Republic. The meeting at Pardubice on Saturday features the third Velka Pardubicka qualification race, over 5 800 metres.

This newsletter should have been posted a week ago, and I have no excuses for the delay. I have not been unwell, I have not been busy. I could justly claim that it has been very hot – but the very hot weather only began after I should have completed the newsletter.

Irish-bred Touch of Genius, by Galileo, out of Festoso (Diesis), won the 23^rd running of Slovak Derby in good style on July 19th, and became only the fourth horse to win the Derby in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

This is the 14th season that Petr Drahoš has headed TMM s.r.o., organizers of horseracing at  Prague Velká Chuchle.