When I started writing this, just six weeks before the beginning of the racing season, it was snowing heavily outside and it snowed all day. We had not had a frost-free night since before Christmas. Now, at the end of February, a few days later, the snow has melted in Prague. It is a miracle each year how quickly nature recovers even from a hard winter – the harder the winter the more resolutely nature seems to recover. In all probability we will be racing in more or less spring conditions at Slusovice on April 6^th, and a day later at Prague Velka Chuchle.

Our nine-week spell of freezing wintry weather is well within the bounds of normality here. Even in Prague we expect cold winters. Skating on the river in Prague is fondly remembered by old folk, and in old films, but since the construction of the cascade of dams on the Vltava in the 1950s, water managers have had instructions to keep the river ice-free. The ski centres in the mountains not far from Prague away in most directions depend on having plenty of snow, but climate change has been threatening their livelihood in the last 20 years. Crosscountry skiing is a very popular recreational sport here, and the racecourses in Prague and Pardubice both currently have their gates open for considerable numbers of  urban skiers. The Velka Chuchle website offers an 800 metre circuit for skiers, free-of-charge, in the area in front of the grandstand and down into the car-park area. Skis are available for hire, and artificial snow is promised for this weekend.   

A forfeit date for the Czech classic races has just passed. The reduced prize money and the high entrance money has somewhat depressed the numbers of entries, though of course any 3-y-o that shows some promise or form can and will be supplemented.

Two of our major trainers have no entries in the classics. Cestmir Olehla told Dostihovy svet that he has no suitable horses, and in any case the Guineas races come very early in the season (for a trainer whose yard is right up in the chilly mountains). After being private trainer for many years to Wrbna Racing, Olehla made the difficult move to being a public trainer last year. The trainer of Zeleznik and Registana says that his hopes for this year lie with his jumpers [including last year’s 2^nd finisher in the Velka Pardubicka, Ronino, and also Registana’s daughter, Regine. Registana’s son, Reaper, now a 4-y-o, shows some good promise]. Olehla is hoping that the problems in Italian racing can be resolved and that he will be able to take horses over there. He also says he intends to run some prospective chasers in the bumper races that will be introduced at Pardubice this season.

Another trainer with no entries in the Czech classics is Arslangirej Savujev. He says he has just received a nice 3-y-o, owned by Ramzan Kadyrov, that may be supplemented. Dux Scholar, one of the Kadyrov horses trained at Mimon last summer by Savujev, won a nice race at Mejdan a few days ago, and another, Mikhail Glinka, finished 5^th in another race on the same day. In the UAE, the Kadyrov horses are being trained by American trainer, Seth Benzel, but Savujev expects them to return to him after they finish in Dubai. The question is, where will Savujev be then? The Mimon stud and training area are up for sale by auction in April. Savujev says he hopes he can stay, as he is well satisfied with his present set-up. It seems that he tried to persuade Ramzan Kadyrov to buy the property, but Kadyrov is not interested.

Another news item in February concerned the changes at Dostihovy spolek, dealt with elsewhere on this site http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/en/node/1139. Michael Skalicky has been appointed racecourse manager, and Richard Benysek has taken over from Dr Vladimir Tluchor as chairman of the board. Richard Benysek is a top crisis manager, known to have no patience with non-performers, and further changes at Dostihovy spolek Pardubice are to be expected within a short time scale. Richard Benysek is a close associate of the richest Czech, Petr Kellner. It is not clear whether either Benysek or Kellner wants to get seriously engaged, and be Pardubice racecourse’s White Knight, or at least professionalize the management. Or whether the purchase of shares was just a wealthy man’s whim that will soon be forgotten about.

I must again this month congratulate our rival Czech language website, Fitmin&Turf Magazine. Fitmin has so far interviewed 18 trainers about their prospects for the coming season. Number 16 was Frantisek Holcak. He told the interviewer that Age of Jape, which won the Czech triple crown in 2009 and also some Slovak classics, and then went on the win a Group 1 hurdles race at Merano, is to make a comeback. The horse was injured in 2011, and there was talk of him going to stud. He did not appear in 2012, but now his new owners want him to go for the Velka Pardubicka. Age of Jape has not yet run over fences, but his sire, Jape, which stands in Poland, has produced a long line of jumpers. Frantisek Holcak says that the horse is fine, but he has no idea what the horse will think of the Irish Bank and the Big Water Jump, and adds that he would have preferred him to go to stud.

Another report in Fitmin&Turf is that double Velka Pardubicka winner Sixteen has been covered by Suteki Shinsukekun.

Dostihovy svet, Czech language version, is also of course a source of plenty of interesting information. For example, Josef Vana junior rode in and won the first-ever (I think) hurdles race in Spain, at La Zarzuela. Josef Bartos also rode in the race.I will translate the article about Vana’s visit to Madrid when I make time.

As reported elsewhere on this site, the 2013 Czech racing calendar is going to look a bit different from past years. Pardubice is to put on some Friday afternoon meetings, with bumpers and hurdles races. Slusovice is putting on meetings in April and May that will give Moravian and Slovak owners and trainers a chance to run their horses near to home. Svetla Hora is to have a meeting again this year, after missing out last year due to a fire at the course. Mimon racecourse is to be put up for sale in April, and race meeting there this summer seems unlikely. Tochovice also seems unlikely to put on a meeting this year, after missing last year. Albertovec does not (yet) appear in the published calendar http://www.dostihyjc.cz/dostihy.php for the usual date at the end of July.

Four of the regular Sunday afternoon meetings at Prague Velka Chuchle this spring were until this last week of February only pencilled in to the racing calendar, and “the Prague organiser has reserved the dates and will confirm the meetings when funding for them has been fully ensured”. As you can read in the article above this, all the Sunday meetings from April until June at Velka Chuchle are now confirmed, though sponsors are still being sought.

I hope you are planning a visit for the Velka Pardubicka weekend. The VP will be on Sunday, October 13^th, and there will presumably be a flat race meeting at Pardubice on the day before. Another attractive weekend features the Czech Derby on Sunday, June 23^rd, and a two-day meeting at Pardubice on June 21^st and June 22^nd, including the second Velka Pardubicka qualification race.

With the financial crisis in Czech racing, everyone has been looking round for a beneficiary, a white knight, or a well-connected friend of racing. However, I seem to be the first to mention, right now, the name of František Čuba. František Čuba, as a young man, brought fame in the 1980s to JZD Slušovice, the collective farm at Slušovice, which set up the racecourse to which crowds of 40 000 were attracted by the goods, unavailable to the public elsewhere in Czechoslovakia, manufactured by the collective farm, that were on sale at the races. Čuba had enabled his brother Josef to set up the racecourse at Slusovice. Anyway, it has been announced that František Čuba will be a close adviser of Milos Zeman, who is to be inaugurated as president of the Republic on March 8^th. If you are interested, read more about Slusovice racecourse in an article that I wrote and in part translated in 2009  http://www.paddock-revue.cz/en/node/10277, which mentions the Čuba brothers’ commitment to racing at Slusovice.