Jiřina Vodehnalová Andrésová won the first race she ever rode in, on Serious Ness, in April 1999. Since that time, she has established herself as a reliable lightweight rider who can still ride at 49 kg. Until this year, however, she had never ridden more than 11 winners in a season, and she had accumulated a total of just 77 winners.

If we had been told at the beginning of April that a woman would be our champion jockey this year, the only question would have been: Will it be Martina Havelková, or Vendula Korečková? Martina and Vendula both started riding as apprentices in 2001, and have both been in demand as experienced and reliable jockeys for many years. Martina, who can ride at 49 kg, has several times, including this year, been the busiest within the Czech Republic of all our jockeys. At the end of this season, Vendula Korečková had ridden a career total 215 winners, a record for Czech woman jockeys, and she had overtaken  as the record holder. Martina has now ridden a career total of 212 winners. Vendula finished third in this year’s championship, with Martina in fifth place. (Interview with Martina Havelková

Our champion jockey Jiřina Andrésová has also set other records this year, which I hope will never be broken. She is the only Czech champion jockey never to have won a Category I or higher race. She is also the only Czech jockey to have ridden 100 winners without ever winning a Category I or higher race.

Only one of the 16 jockeys in the 102nd running of CPIPG Czech Derby was a woman. Vendula Korečková was given the ride on outsider Fascing Rock, which finished 13th.