Czech flat racing jockeys' championship - leaders as of October 3rd, 2022

Just 43 more races on the flat (one of them restricted to amateur riders) will be run before the 2022 racing season in the Czech Republic comes to an end at Kolesa racecourse on November 6^th.  

Our flat race jockeys’ championship seems unlikely to be settled before that chilly afternoon in November when, I hope, there will again be a competition for the warmest and most acclaimed item of headwear. The warmest hat competition is frequently won by a female contestant, but this year, for the first time, there are also likely to be two jockeys competing with each other on that afternoon to be the first-ever female winner of the Czech champion jockey title.

Vendula Korečková led the championship race in the summer months, before Jiřina Andrésová overtook her by riding three winners in an afternoon at Slušovice, for the second time this year, on September 17^th, followed by a double on the other side of the country, at Karlovy Vary, on the following day. Since then, Vendula has made her way back into the lead by the narrowest of margins. Both jockeys have currently ridden 23 winners and 12 second places, but Vendula has ridden three more third-placed horses than Jiřina.

How is this situation to be explained? Firstly, of course, Vendula Korečková and Jiřina Andrésová are good, hard-working, experienced jockeys. Secondly, our best male jockeys have either gone to work abroad, or are more likely to be invited to ride in big races in Slovakia, Germany, Poland and elsewhere, rather than ride at a small meeting in the Czech Republic. Thirdly, most of our best male jockeys have a lowest riding weight of 56 kg or more, while Jiřina Andrésová rides at 48 kg, the lowest weight assigned in our races. Fourthly, there are nowadays considerably more girls than boys at our schools for apprentices and working with racehorses..

Czech trainers have to look quite hard for a good rider at a low weight in a low-category race at a small racecourse, and have had to overcome any concern they may have had about putting a girl up. Nevertheless, it is probably too soon to declare that Czech horse racing is an equal-opportunities sport. The riders who have ridden the most races in the Czech Republic so far this season are Martina Havelková (127) and Jiřina Andrésová (113), but the prizemoney table is led by male jockeys Petr Foret and Milan Zatloukal, far ahead of Martin Laube and Jiří Palík, with Vendula Korečková in fifth place.

Our female jockeys are certainly getting opportunities to work, but the best-paid and most attractive gigs still go to the boys. Fifteen of the 16 jockeys in the Czech Derby on June 26th were men, and the only female jockey this year was Vendula Korečková, who finished 13^th on the outsider Fascing Rock.