After Saturday’s racing over fences at Pardubice, Sunday will be given over to a mixed programme at Benešov in the Black Forest. Anyone who deides to go to Benešov will surely have no regrets. The eight races will be accompanied by a race for unregistered horses and a rich supplementary programme in connection with the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of racing at Benešov, to which the organisers have paid particular attention.

"The track is fine. An awful lot of work has been done on it, but now everything is finished and ready for Sunday," reports Jarka Trachtová, the main organiser of racing at Benešov. "We have levelled and filled in the track, done some backfilling, rolled it and used a plough on it. We’ve also been working on the jumps. We have trimmed them, and also the other hedges at the course, and we’ve been applying padding. We have painted all the fences, and we have also had in mind the facilities for the jockeys, which we have put in order," Jarka Trachtová adds. JarkTo, the association that manages racing events in the Black Forest, consists of  Jarka and trainer Tomáš Hurt.

What can visitors look forward to on Sunday? "Between the flat races and jumps races, there will be an exhibition of historic cars and motorsycles for them to look at, and majorettes will parade their skills. Not only major Czech owners and sponsors have promised their support, and we are very grateful to them, but also some personalities from the Czech cultural and political scene," Jarka Trachtová says.

In her role as owner of the Gabriela stable, Jarka Trachtova changed the composition of her staff this spring. "Jaromír Šafář and Markéta Pátkova came here, and I cannot praise them highly enough. They ride as if their lives depended on it. The horses and now being prepared extremely well, and in a calm environment. Markéta is a smart girl, and Jaromír (the current Czech champion jockey) is very good. I am very satisfied," says Jarka Trachtová, our hostess on Sunday.

Translated from the Czech language pages of Dostihový svět. The interviewer is Jana Šejnohová.