The race meeting planned for Slusovice in August will not be held, due to the extreme weather in recent days. The heatwave has put Slusovice racecourse more of less out of action, and the organisers have called the August meeting off. For the moment, the racing calendar has been slimmed down, but it does seem that the most reasonable decision has been made.

“It seemed to us to be the most sensible thing to do. Of course, the planned races could have been run somehow, but it would have meant risking the health of the horses,” Radek Vraj explains. “Appropriate and correct dealings with owners and trainers are more important for us. If we’d held the races, many of them would have withdrawn horses that were declared to run, due to the state of the track, and the entrance money would have stayed with the organisers. We don’t want to do be involved in that kind of business.”

According to Vraj, the track at Slusovice is extremely hard, with big cracks in it, and the irrigation system that the organisers have available is not able to cope with it. “In this weather, we are not able to get the track into an appropriate state. Until there’s a major change in the weather, it’s hard to see any improvement coming along, ” Radek Vraj complained. Although Slusovice has not yet announced a replacement date, the organisers would like to offer some alternative outcome.

“We have in mind an alternative date in September,” Vraj says, on behalf of the organisers at Slusovice, adding that any replacement race day will, of course,  be announced in good time.

Translated from the Dostihovy Svet Czech-language website.