The best way to get to Prague Velka Chuchle racecourse is by rail. Trains leave Hlavni Nadrazi (Main Station) at 19 and 49 minutes past each hour, and stop at Smichovske Nadrazi (Smichov Station) at 27 and 57 minutes past each hour.
This newsletter normally appears a few days or hours before the beginning of the month whose name it carries, but this time I was far too ill to want to write it at the relevant time. By this morning, April 10th, I had decided that the April and May newsletters would be merged, and might appear at the end of April.
At a press conference held at Hotel Pariz on April 10th, Jiri Charvat, president of the Czech Jockey Club, announced a new general partner for Czech horseracing – Mercedes Benz!
Jiří Zlamaný has been working on the new http://www.dostihy.net/ website, which has chosen Friday March 13th
As of the end of the 2014 season, Jiří Posád, whose horses run in the blue-and-white MonteNegro colours, had only ever owned 9 racehorses. However, they had included our 2014 Czech Derby winner, Cheeky Chappie, 2013 Derby winner, Mister Aviation, and 2012 Derby winner Kadyny. Not to mention Always on Sunday, winner of the Czech St Leger in 2013.
January was yet another mild month, with daytime temperatures rising above zero Celsius just about every day in Prague. However, some quite good snow fell in the mountains for skiers to enjoy. Overall, a very satisfactory month’s weather, except perhaps for companies that usually make a pretty good living out of repairing roads damaged by winter icing.
Seventeen racing days are planned for Wroclaw in 2015. The season begins on April 26th and ends on October 25th.
The winter months should be quiet in Czech racing. There will be no racing here until next April, and few trainers have horses that they want to run abroad and conditions for training the horses intensively indoors or on an all-weather track. Although our horses ran in December only at Deauville and at Marseille Pont des Vivaux, in France, and at Grosseto, in Italy, some pleasing successes were achieved.
In the last race on the last afternoon of the 2014 Italian racing season over fences, at Grosseto on December 17th, Josef Bartoš needed to ride the winner to be sure of winning the Italian jockeys’ championship. He achieved this by riding Barnabo to victory.
