An interview with Jan Faltejsek, six times winning jockey in the Velka Pardubicka
Submitted by Robin on 8. April 2024 - 23:52This interview with Jan Faltejsek was taken soon after the Velka Pardubicka in October 2023 by Dostihový svět
This interview with Jan Faltejsek was taken soon after the Velka Pardubicka in October 2023 by Dostihový svět
Czech horseracing has enjoyed a great deal of publicity in the last two months in relation to the Petition to Save the Napajedla Stud. The petition aimed to preserve the Napajedla stud farm, which has been the biggest and best-known Thoroughbred breeding institution in the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia) throughout its almost 140-year history; and also to block the present owner’s efforts to get building permission and sell the pastures where mares and foals have frolicked happily for all those years.
Exactly 568 pages, more than a hundred historic press cuttings and documentary photographs, bustling work over a period of 25 years, which has morphed into an exceptional book, not only in terms of its extent and range, but also with its bold graphic conception. What led to the publication of Dostihy o modrou stuhu (Races for the Blue Riband), which maps out the history of the most prestigious flat race that every Czech jockey, trainer and racehorse owner wants to win?
This interview with Martin Cáp was conducted by Jana Šejnohová. Martin’s eagerly-awaited history of the Czechoslovak/Czech Derby, under the title Dostihy o Modrou Stuhu (Races for the Blue Riband) appeared in January 2024.
Horseracing at Markopoulo racecourse in Athens comes to an abrupt end
I had hoped and expected that someone would publish some facts and figures about Czech horseracing early in 2024, and that I would be able to translate them into English for the Dostihový svět web pages.
At its meeting on November 30th, 2023, the final point on the agenda of the Council of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic was the election of the president of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic for a four-year period. The two candidates were the present president since the end of 2019, Ing. Josef Bečvář, and his predecessor, JUDr. Ing. Jiří Charvát, who served as president from April 2014 until December 2019. In the first round of voting, neither candidate won the required two thirds majority, and in the second round Jiří Charvát won by ten votes to five.
The school for apprentices at Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse provides a good opportunity for young people to learn to care for racehorses and start on their way towards becoming a jockey and working with horses. Each September, there is a new intake of teenagers – nowadays mainly girls – and the hardest-working and most talented can progress quite quickly.
On October 24th, Dostihový spolek, organisers of events at Pardubice racecourse, announced that it was cancelling the final race meeting of the 2023 season at Pardubice, which had been scheduled for November 12th.