An interesting rider’s name that appeared in one of the hurdles races at Prague Velka Chuchle last Sunday was Jan Verner. Since Jan first started riding in races as an apprentice in 2008, he has never been short of rides on the flat. He is still able to ride at 52 kg. This is considerably less than our other leading male riders on the flat. Since 2013, he has always finished the season fifth or higher in our flat jockeys championship. This season he is in third place, with 14 winners, four behind the leading two, Jaromír Šafář and Jan Rája. Trainers have come and gone, and come back again, at the Rabbit Trhový Štěpánov training and breeding center at Pičín near Benešov, but Jan Verner has remained wearing the green and white colours as stable jockey. He has already ridden 184 winners on the flat.

Jan comes from a horseracing family with jumping connections. From time to time he accepts a ride over hurdles, and his record as a jumps rider is impressive: six wins in sixteen rides.

Dostihový svět’s Jana Šejnohová recently asked him if he was thinking of moving over to jumps racing. He replied, “I don’t think I can say that I’m moving to racing over fences. I just enjoy jumps racing from time to time. With the horses I ride over fences, I basically just show them the way round. My parents are very pleased, of course. But it disturbs their weekend a bit, and draws them away from their routine of mowing the grass at our weekend place in the country.”

Jan Verner has ridden all over the Czech Republic, and also at Bratislava and at Dresden, but has not yet ridden any of the Czech-trained flat horses that have been running abroad with considerable success, particularly in France, in the last two years. Our flat trainers mainly engage local jockeys to ride their horses in France, and in any case, the Rabbit Trhový Štěpánov horses do not often run at distant racecourses.