(a press release from the organisers of horseracing at Pardubice)

Race meetings at upcountry courses are less of a feature of Czech racing in July and August than a few years ago, and the meeting on Saturday, July 13th at Svetla Hora, up in the hills near Bruntal, will be a special occasion. There will be seven races, six over fences and one bumper. Svetla Hora is the training establishment of top trainer, Cestmir Olehla. The first race is at 1.10 p.m.

The first of the three races in the Josef Vana Summer Steeplechase series was won easily and impressively by Khalshani, winner of the Gold Cup at Pardubice earlier this month. Khalshani is owned by Jiri Charvat and trained by Cestmir Olehla. In the absence of Jaroslav Myska, he was ridden by Jiri Kousek. Kousek reported that the horse jumped impeccably and won very easily. Second place went to Makler, and third place went to Age of Luck, which turned out to be the best of the six Vana-trained runners.

 TURF Praha, a. s. Press release
23.6.2013

The first of the three Josef Vana Summer Cup classical steeplechases, each with prize money of just over CzK 1 million (EUR 40 000), will be run at Karlovy Vary on Sunday, June 30^th. Karlovy Vary is Josef Vana’s home racecourse, and there can be no doubt that he wants to win as much as possible of the million crowns that he has persuaded sponsors to put up.

Despite the floods at the beginning of the month, which left Prague Velka Chuchle racecourse quite severely damaged, and also damaged Karlovy Vary racecourse, the Czech Derby took place on the originally-designated date at our third-choice racecourse. Congratulations to Petr Drahos and his TMM team, organizers of racing at Velka Chuchle, for putting the race on successfully at Most racecourse, 100 kilometres from Prague, while also dealing with the situation at Velka Chuchle.

Saturday May 22^nd was a pleasantly warm afternoon, after heatwave conditions over the previous 5 days. The going was good to firm, and the course appeared to be in good condition. The afternoon featured a number of good performances by established horses, and including one very good performance and one that was truly impressive.

Those of us who have been looking for information about events being held this year at Wroclaw Partynice racecourse need search no more. http://torpartynice.pl/english/race-conditions/ Partynice now has good and informative web pages in English language.

Twelve race meetings are planned this year. The big meeting of the season is on Saturday/Sunday, September 7th/8th, when the main event, the Wielka Wroclawska, with prize money of about EUR 40 000, will be supported by other major races.