Most racecourse held its second major race meeting of the season, following the successful Derby day, which was transferred to Most at short notice following the floods in Prague at the end of June. On Oaks day, the weather was again pleasantly mild, and the going was only slightly on the firm side of good.

The Czech Oaks has regularly been run at Most in recent years, complete with ladies hats competitions in various categories. The race was won well by Saltanat, which had finished a close second in the Oaks trial at Most on Derby day, and benefitted from the extra 200 metres. Saltanat is Irish-bred, by Duke of Marmelade out of a Galileo mare. She is owned by Kazakh film director Ardak Amirkulov, who owned the best two horses ever to have been trained in the Czech Republic, Darsalam and Shamalgan, which were both trained by Arslangirej Savujev. Amirkulov’s horses are now with Czech-based Russian trainer Artur Resulov, whose first classic win this was. His tears of joy and other highlights of the day at Most are captured in Petr Guth’s photographs. http://www.dostihovy-svet.cz/cs/node/2259. Saltanat was ridden by Radek Koplik, who also greatly enjoyed this win.

The next meeting at Most is on August 31^st, and will feature the last of the three races in the Josef Vana Summer Cup series of classical steeplechases, each of which carries a million crowns of prize money.