The first of the nine race days announced for Pardubice in the 2017 season was held on the Monday, May 8^th Liberation Day public holiday. The course appeared to be in good order, though the desertification of the ploughed fields seems - visually, from a distance - to be progressing quite rapidly.

At the opening meeting of the 2017 season at Pardubice on Monday, May 8th, Charles Sheehan, ambassador of the Republic of Ireland to the Czech Republic will accept the position of Patron of the 5th obstacle in the Velka Pardubicka crosscountry steeplechase, the Irish Bank.

Jan Kratochvíl is probably still only number two jockey for the Josef Váňa stable. However, he has been our champion jumps jockey for the last two seasons. He rode Mazhilis to victory in the Gran Premio at Merano last September. And on Monday at Lysá nad Labem he became the first jockey in the 55 years of the race to win the Category I First of May Steeplechase at four years in succession.

Four race days have been held so far this season in the Czech Republic, and on each occasion flat races have been won by jockeys who have set up camp for this year outside the Czech Republic.

At the end of last year, trainer Radim Bodlák took two of his charges over to Cheltenham to be the first Czech runners there for some time. Now that preparations are being made for the world’s leading jumps meeting at that racecourse, he is not preparing to go back although, as he says, it would not be impossible to prepare a horse in the Czech Republic to run at the Festival in March.

Twenty racedays have been announced for the 2017 horseracing season in Slovakia. This is the same number as in 2016. http://www.zavodisko.sk/sk/terminova-listina.html

There will be 16 meetings at Bratislava, two at Topol’čanky, one at Senice and one at Šurany.

The race conditions for the revival of horseracing at Vienna Freudenau on September 16^th have been announced. If you are interested in entering a horse for the Austrian St Leger, 2 800 m; EUR 30 000, for 3-y-o and older, please note that the closing date is Monday, Febuary 13^th. For further information, please contact

A happy new year, everybody. In horseracing, new years are full of hope, with the birth of foals in the early months, promising three-year-olds appearing as soon as winter is over, and two-year-olds going through their paces later in the season.

After an interval of four years, two Czech-trained horses will run in the UK, at Cheltenham on Friday, December 9^th. Czech-trained horses run very frequently nowadays in Italy, France, Slovakia, Germany and Poland, and occasionally in Hungary, Switzerland and Sweden. However, the long journey to the most famous steeplechase course in the world is not only a rarity, but an event that arouses great interest in the Czech horseracing community.