Sunday is Gran Premio day at Merano in northern Italy. In addition to strong contenders trained in France,  Germany and Italy, there is strong Czech representation.

Seven of the thirteen runners have a Czech connection. Four are trained in the Czech Republic by Josef Váňa snr: Broughton, Mazhilis, Home Please and Nos Galan. Josef Váňa is the leading trainer of steeplechasers in Italy this year. Trainer Stanslav Popelka sends Al Bustan. In addition, the German-trained runner is Falconettei. His trainer, Pavel Vovčenko, is a Czech who has been based in Germany for many years. Finally, Italian-trained Atalan will be ridden by Czech jockey, Josef Bartoš.

The best of the Czech-trained horses may be Al Bustan, which won the Swedish Grand National very easily in June, and won major races at Merano in August and at the beginning of September. In the August race, Mazhilis and Broughton dead-heated for second place behind Al Bustan, and in the September race second place went to Nos Galan. In each of these cases, the margin between first and second was two lengths.

Among the Váňa-trained horses, there is little to choose between Mazhilis, winner of the Gran Premio in 2016, and Broughton, which won a good race at Merano in May. Broughton will be ridden by Josef Váňa jnr, who thinks he is the best of the four. Mazhilis is naturally the favourite of Jan Kratochvíl, whose win on this horse in this race last year was his biggest success so far in his career. 6-y-o Nos Galan is still improving, and his recent second place behind Al Bustan was his best performance yet. Nos Galan will be ridden by Polish jockey Dominik Pastuszka. Home Please will be ridden by Jiří Kousek. He won a nice hurdles race at Milan early in the season, but is probably the fourth-best of the Váňa-trained horses.