The meeting at Pardubice on June 8^th was held on a mild, sunny day that was all the more pleasant for being a rarity so far this year. The going was good to soft, after the heavy rains that have fallen recently.

The main race was the Gold Cup, 4200 metres, Listed, with prize money of KCs 300 000. Khalshani, whose best form until now was in Italy, won very well under Josef Bartos. Khalshani is owned by Staj Charvatova, trained by Cestmir Olehla and was ridden by Josef Bartos. The other major race, the Category II Agrovenkova Zeleznik Crosscountry Chase produced a wild race. Not for the first time, the requirement to take the Irish Bank ‘the wrong way round’ caused disarray, with only 4 of the 9 runners getting over at all smoothly, though two more scrambled over at the second attempt – only to collide with each other not much later, at the Snake Ditch. By the time the horses reached the 4^th from home, only Cmana and the favourite, Zarif, remained. These two, ridden by Josef Bartos and Josef Vana jnr, respectively, then raced each other head-to-head until Zarif narrowly prevailed in the last 100 metres. 6-y-o Zarif had also won here at the opening meeting of the season. He showed plenty of fight after having a very rough passage, hitting more than one fence and being interfered with more than once by falling and refusing horses. Zarif could well develop into a Velka Pardubicka horse However, he is in the same ownership as Tiumen, and he is likely to wait for another year.

Dusan Andres rode 3 winners. Cestmir Olehla trained 2 winners. Two novices, Vandual and Starbuck, both with good flat form, won impressively. Vandual won the Slovak St Leger two years ago. 

The next meeting at Pardubice is on Friday June 21^st and Saturday June 22^nd. Two flat races have been added to the card on the Friday, to compensate in part for the loss of races at Prague Velka Chuchle and at Karlovy Vary due to flooding. The main race on the Saturday will be the 2^nd VP qualification race.

An extra day of racing has been arranged at Lysa nad Labem on Sunday June 16^th, where there will also be a meeting on June 15^th.

The flood waters along the Vltava in Prague are gradually receding. All the buildings on the racecourse at Velka Chuchle have been under more than a metre of water for a week, and it will take a lot of hard work to clean them up. With the anticipated help of plenty of volunteers, it can be done. More worrying for some is the state of the turf, which is under deep water, especially on the far side of the course. Although it looks like a hopeless case at the present time, there is a 12-week period of summer before the next scheduled meeting at Velka Chuchle, at the end of August for the grass to recover.

Perhaps it really will be possible to hold the autumn meetings there.