Trainer Čestmír Olehla chose Blommeröd, in southern Sweden, for the first outing of his horses in 2018. This was the first time that a Czech-trained horse has run there. The team from Světlá Hora did not come back empty-handed from this expedition to the north, as Poinsettia, ridden by Jakub Spáčil, won 12 000 Swedish kronor in prizemoney. 

The idea of running horses in Sweden came to this experienced trainer mainly via a Swedish owner, Hvitas stjerna, who moved some horses to Světlá Hora last year. “That’s definitely where the idea of going to Sweden came from,” Olehla admits. “We’re considering heading for the Swedish Grand National meeting at Strömsholm in July. It’s quite a lot farther away than Blommeröd [Blommeröd is right in the south of Sweden, while Strömsholm some way west of Stockholm – so the trip to Strömsholm will be about 400 km longer].  These runners were to some extent a trial run, to check on the logistics, to see how we can get to Sweden, and what will be awaiting us there.”

On this occasion, Olehla’s team encountered a track within the area of a former stud farm for Arab thoroughbreds that is no longer used for breeding. “Foreign workers work on the track, maintain it and operate it, but it is right out in the countryside,” Olehla points out. “It’s a small track, with a lot of turns, and after the winter there were still plenty of places without grass, and the surface was pretty soggy. The conditions were not at all ideal, but the obstacles had been prepared very well.”

The performances of Olehla’s horses did not in the end justify the fears of some Swedes, who regarded the Czech raiders as a major threat for the domestic horses. Nevertheless, it was a good learning process from the point of view of the trainer. “We might have been able to do a bit better. The Swedes were were afraid of us, seeing how far we had travelled. Our horses may have suffered at the end of the race from a shortage of fast work, which they didn’t get in March, in our conditions. And the course didn’t really suit us. It was a learning experience for our riders [Jakub Spáčil and Jan Odložil]. Unlike in the Czech Republic, they were only allowed to support the horse with the whip between obstacles, and only with strokes on the shoulder.”  

A third place at the beginning of the season was an acceptable outcome for Olehla, and after they had done some fast work at Světlá Hora on Tuesday, his thoughts turned to Wroclaw and Bratislava [these courses, in Poland and in Slovakia, are less distant from Světlá Hora than most of the major Czech racecourses]. “As far as the Poles are concerned, we’ve heard that their horses are more wound up than ours, and they’ve been able to train seriously on the track for about a month. So we’ll see whether they have an advantage over us. We’re running Celadon in the main race. After his races at Pardubice, he’ll have to get used to a grassier track, and he’ll be up against some pretty good opposition. In the other races, I’m curious about Illdowhatican, which is having his first run. He’s shown up well at home, and I hope he’ll confirm it in the race,” Olehla adds. He also thinks that another 4-y-o, Society Solvent, will put in a solid performance.

On Sunday, a smaller team will set out from Světlá Hora for Bratislava, where Masha will run over fences. “She’s going there mainly because she won at Wroclaw, so there is no race for her to run in there. “Since the shock of their champion Meny Bay being beaten over fences at Bratislava last weekend, nobody goes there without certain ambitions!”

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This interview by Petr Guth first appeared in the Czech-language pages of Dostihový svět. Translated by Robin.