Our owners and trainers have done their very best to support European Jockeys Cup day at Prague Velká Chuchle racecourse on Saturday, September 2nd. All four feature races and also all five minor races have attracted big fields. http://www.dostihyjc.cz/prihlasky.php?id_den=6103

Apart from one race with 10 entries, all the rest have 12 or more entries. The quality is also excellent, with particularly interesting races now expected for the EJC LONG and the EJC MILLION. It was important to have large fields, so that all invited jockeys can ride in all the feature races and in most of the minor races.

8-year-old Trip to Rhodos (see picture), perhaps still our best stayer, will be making his first appearance at Prague Velká Chuchle since 2013 in the EJC Long.

Declared runners will be announced at 10 a.m. on August 29th. The draw for jockeys will be held at a press conference on Wednesday, August 30th. There is a slightly complicated system for selecting jockeys. In the major races, owners or their representatives get to choose their jockey, with the connections of the highest-rated horses having first choice. In the minor races, there is a lottery, and all international jockeys invited for the competition will end up with the same number of rides. Or something like that.

I am told that Greeks living in the Czech Republic will be turning out en masse to support supreme Greek jockey Panagiotis Dimitsanis, whose acceptance on an invitation to compete in the EJC has helped to raise a lot of interest in the event.