Very few will have noticed, but the February 2013 newsletter has been delayed a little. It is being started, and should be finished, on February 3^rd. I have been busy with what I usually refer to as my daytime job. Ironically, my daytime job has been keeping me up at night! Not only have I had little time for updating this site, I have not even been following the webpages very carefully. Before and during writing, I had to read up the considerable amounts of good information not only in my favourite source, the Czech-language pages of Dostihovy Svet, but also in the revived and extended Fitmin and Turf Magazine website www.dostihy.fitmin.cz. Congratulations to Fitmin and Turf, whose website is a fitting and I hope friendly rival for Dostihovy Svet. Unlike Dostihovy Svet, Fitmin does not have any English pages. I will get round to asking for permission to translate some of their good interviews.

My attention in the last month has been away from racing, I must admit. I now find that some interesting things have been going on, and plenty of good interviews have been written up, in both of these major internet sources of information about Czech racing. Iva Milickova says she has given up race riding as she has not been able to get back to full fitness after her accident at Great Yarmouth two and a half years ago, but work riding in the UK is going fine. Kristyna Bezdekova has been in Italy for 4 years, and is doing fine, though she gets few rides there. She says she just might be tempted by a good offer to come back here. She says 48 kg is still no problem for her, and I think she could have plenty of rides here. Jiri Chaloupka had an up-and-down year, riding the Derby winner and then losing his father, Jiri snr., in a road accident in November. Jiri, a stylish and experienced rider, not yet in his mid-thirties, has accepted an offer to train the Martin Tour horses, which will presumably remain at Velka Chuchle. He will continue riding, though he admits that he has to starve himself to ride at 58 kg. Jaroslav Myska said that it had been an interesting experience to train horses at Roma Capannelle racecourse, though the horses trained by Stepanka Sedlackova and him had no success at all. Josef Vana has had one winner in Italy this winter, and noone else, in the end, took up the generous-looking offer to accommodate and train horses in Rome. Josef Bartos, who is not longer with Josef Vana, has already had four winning rides in Italy this year, as second jockey for top jumps trainer Paolo Favero.

Another interesting interview on the Fitmin website was with Chris Richner, whose bloodstock agency is going very well http://dostihy.fitmin.cz/drazby-a-trhy/christian-richner.html. Three winners of Derbys in 2012 were purchased for clients by Chris: Kadyny (Czech Republic), Latin Lover (Hungary), and New Heaven (Croatia). I will ask for permission to translate this interesting interview.

At this time of year there is no racing going on here, and true enthusiasts follow closely the foals that are being born, the arrival of new stallions and then the plans for our brood mares. We always seem to have a greater quantity and a lower quality of stallions than are needed. The most interesting new arrival, at the Napajedla stud, our leading breeding establishment, is probably Durante Alighieri, by Galileo out of Puce. This 5-y-o is the first son of Galileo in Czech breeding. He only ran three times, and won one small race, but his pedigree is full of the right names.       

The Czech Jockey Club sprung a surprise early in January by agreeing to raise the amount that racecourses could charge for entry+declaration from 5% to 8%. It was widely agreed that 5% is already a very high amount, and I am pleased to say that most organizers of racing here do not plan to raise their entry fees, or will do so only in an emergency. It emerged that the instigator of the change was Zdenek Karlach, organizer of racing at distant Slusovice, and a hero of this newsletter. He has organised the Czech Horseracing Gala dinner again this year, as usual in the town hall in Prostejov. The Slusovice website hosts a series of Karlach’s invectives against his critics and those who have offended him. Good for him! Karlach declares that he will this year offer racing early in the season for Moravian owners and trainers. They will pay more for their entries (8%), but they will save the considerable cost and effort of driving their horses to and from Prague. According to the racecourse website, Slusovice has applied to hold races on  April 6^th and May 18^th - which would raise the number of racedays in Moravia in the first two months of the season from one (at Brno) to three. This seems to me to make good sense, especially for the low category horses that, I assume, almost all the races will be targeted at.

Another unexpected announcement is that Czech jockeys have lost their /ž/ prefix. It has been a tradition here that a fully-qualified ‘jockey’, i.e. a rider who has ridden 50 winners, has the prefix /ž/ before his name on the racecard. I have always considered this a nice tradition, useful for the casual racegoer, that ought to be transferred to other countries. Instead, in order to be like the rest of the racing world, we are to give up the /ž/. There are also some changes in riders’ allowances. Now apprentices will receive 5 kg until they have ridden 50 winners, then 2.5 kg up to 100 winners, and thereafter 1.5 kg. Amateur riders will receive 5 kg until they have ridden 50 winners, then 2.5 kg up to 100 winners, and thereafter no allowance. Professional riders will receive 2.5 kg until they have ridden 50 winners, then 1.5 kg up to 100 winners, and thereafter no allowance. I presume these allowances will continue to be claimable only in lower category races. The changes help apprentices quite a lot, and will make top lightweight apprentices very attractive. Older jockeys who have already ridden 100 winners but are past their best will find themselves giving away weight to up-and-coming riders, so they have no reason to like these changes. Due to the general lack of good riders, however, especially over fences, the changes are not likely to make a big difference.   

Pardubice racecourse’s new proposal was surprisingly quickly and easily passed by the Jockey Club. Pardubice, like Slusovice plans to offer more racing days, despite the financial crisis in Czech racing. The plan is to have racing on the Friday afternoons before some of the traditional Saturday afternoon racedays, see http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/996. An interesting innovation for us will be bumper races. A few bumper-type races have been run here before, mainly at Radslavice (which, sadly, does not have a meeting planned for 2013). I will now translate for you an open letter distributed by Dostihovy spolek, Pardubice on the topic of bumpers:

Dear racehorse owners and trainers

We are addressing you with reference to the plan to organise flat races for steeplechase horses. We want to let you know about the starting conditions for your horses in these races.

Flat races for steeplechasers will be set up for horses that you have decided will have a career in steeplechasing. A horse that runs in bumpers will be allowed to run not more than four times in that kind of race, and must then transfer to hurdles or fences. There will also be restrictions on the possibility of moving over to, or going back to, flat races: they will not be allowed to run on the flat in the same season or in the following season. Thus a bumper will be a long-distance flat race for future steeplechasers, with high weights and without starting boxes. 

Kindly inform us whether you will be interested in participating in bumpers, and how many horses you might enter for this kind of race in this year’s racing season. Your feedback will be a key criterion for our final decision on organizing bumpers at Pardubice racecourse. 
Please send your reaction by 28 January 2013 by e-mail to janda@pardubice-racecourse.cz. 

With thanks

Best regards

Hana Jeníková
Manager, Dostihovy Spolek, a.s.

I think Dostihovy Spolek would be interested in your views, too, even if they arrive after their deadline. Readers of the Czech language pages of Dostihovy Svet have been invited to give their opinion on bumpers. 81% think they are an interesting idea, 15% say no, and 4% don’t know.

Dostihovy Spolek, Pardubice had its Annual General Meeting a few days ago, and for the first time in years, it seems, it was held in a more or less friendly atmosphere. Dostihovy spolek has advertised for a new manager – although Hana Jenikova signed the above letter as manager, her position for the last several months has in fact been as acting manager. The name of the new Dostihovy Spolek manager will be announced in February.

So far, the February 2013 newsletter has been upbeat, and that perhaps reflects an optimism that is typical in racing circles when there is a new season to be looked forward to, even when times are hard. Nevertheless, there are worries, particularly for the Jockey Club and for Prague Velka Chuchle racecourse. The financial crisis and national politics have been making it hard for managers of Czech horseracing. Jockey Club president Vaclav Luka and Prague Velka Chuchle racecourse manager Petr Drahos take the gloomy or, should I say, realistic view. Prague Velka Chuchle has failed to confirm two of its usual springtime Sunday afternoon meetings. These, we are told, will be run only if funding can be found for them. Petr Drahos told the Dostihovy Svet Czech language pages, “Last year we missed out on some of the income that we had been expecting. Changes in the law on betting and in the distribution of funds [from the Ministry of Agriculture] were unhelpful. In addition, some agreed events did not take place. At the beginning of the year we signed an agreement with the trotting people, but they ended up not racing here most of the year, and we do not know what they are going to do in the future. In addition, some sponsors have withdrawn, and our horrible year ended with the cancellation of the traditional car rally after the rallying season was brought to a premature end due to spectators being killed [in a rally in Moravia]”        

The racing authorities have been much concerned about the loss of income from betting, and the threat to financial support from the Ministry of Agriculture. The old law on betting and lotteries gave Betino, our horseracing betting company, a monopoly, and stated that it should be run for the benefit of horseracing. Due to small turnover and considerable overheads, Betino has produced only limited income for the sport. The law was changed last year so that a considerable part of Betino’s surplus was taken away in the form of a 20% value added tax (now raised to 21% for 2013) by the Ministry of Finance, with some kind of forlorn hope that the ministry might then find a way of returning some of the money to racing. Vaclav Luka, president of the Jockey Club, said that this change cost Czech racing about four million crowns last year, about €160 000. The Ministry of Agriculture has always given some funding to horseracing, though not a large amount. Last year, the amount was about six million crowns, about €240 000. The Jockey Club has used a considerable part of this money to support Czech horsebreeding (should that be in inverted commas?) by awarding ‘owner’s prizes’ to the owners of Czech-bred horses placed in medium-to-high category races. The Ministry of Agriculture has announced that less money will be available than in the past for it to distribute. The amounts are now being negotiated. The Jockey Club is trying to make a case for a bigger share of the Ministry’s smaller cake.

In general, it seems that the sport’s income from betting and from the Ministry of Agriculture will be less than ever in 2013. Due to the economic crisis, it will be hard for the sport to generate much more than in the past from sponsorship, advertising, television rights, corporate entertainment, etc. It is good that Slusovice and Pardubice are putting forward dynamic new ideas. However, there is good reason for caution, too. It is just as well that noone in and around Czech racing is in the sport for the money, or is counting on easy times in 2013.  

**

January 2013 has also been an interesting month away from the racecourse. Czech politics, never dull and rarely admirable, has been stranger and more fascinating than usual. No character in it is stranger or more fascinating than the outgoing president, Vaclav Klaus, whose successor has just been elected. However, Klaus remains president until March 8^th, and is no doubt planning to go out in characteristic erratic and dramatic fashion, before lending his genius as a Distinguished Expert to an American think-tank (unless he or they change their mind). At the turn of the year, Klaus announced an amnesty, which cast about 7 000 prison inmates out on to the freezing streets unprepared, almost penniless, and in most cases unwanted in the communities they sought to return to. There was an utterly predictable and pathetic outbreak of thefts and acts of violence, and of dubious characters hanging around railway stations and sleeping rough. The amnesty also cleaned the slate for quite a few major fraudsters, most of them with strong political protection, who had managed to delay their trials for a period of eight years. Or has it? Nothing is ever clear and straightforward in Czech law or politics. Attempts to have parts of the amnesty declared unconstitutional are ongoing.

The first ever popular election for a Czech president was held in January, in two rounds. The candidates of the two biggest political parties, the ODS (right) and the CSSD (left of centre), both had awful candidates who lost badly in the first round. The play-off was between the aristocrat, Karel Schwarzenberg (right), currently foreign minister, who attempted to present himself as a decent, harmless old boy, and Milos Zeman (centre left), former CSSD prime minister, who presented himself as the Czech and Moravian candidate. Schwarzenberg left Czechoslovakia as a boy, was brought up in Austria and has a Swiss passport and an Austrian wife, and comes from an old and wealthy family with, shall we say, Austro-Hungarian aristocratic rather than narrowly Czech roots. Zeman’s Moravianness is unimpeachable and was much vaunted.

The archetypal Schwarzenberg supporter held right of centre/libertarian views, came from a large town, was young, educated and aspiring, and was from Bohemia. Zeman’s support came from the left, including many of the communists, older people and the less educated, less optimistic young, from the countryside and from Moravia. It was, more or less, Czechs with a ‘Teutonic’ world view against Czechs with a ‘Slav’ world view, or Germans versus Russians. Klaus, always enigmatic and unpredictable, and his wife, came out in support of Zeman, though this may not have done Zeman’s cause much good. Zeman was the bookies’ favourite until the last few days, but there was heavy money last-minute money for Schwarzenberg. Zeman won, surprisingly comfortably, by an almost 55% - 45% margin. One of Zeman’s first actions will be to have the EU flag fly alongside the Czech flag over Prague Castle - Klaus had had it removed.

How will this affect horseracing? As far as I know, neither of the candidates takes any special interest in the sport, and in any case the president would not have much power to influence political decisions affecting racing.