Panov: Murzabayev helped me to win my first Derby

Rough moments in the decisive phases of the Czech Derby led to some harsh words in the weighing room after the race. However, Vladimír Panov was far from joining in the complaints. On the contrary, he was all smiles. And why not! He had come to Prague for his first Derby winner. Although he makes his living across the border in Germany, he points out that “a Derby is a Derby”, and says that he is extremely happy to have won a race that is sometimes not too highly rated in Germany.

 

A Derby is a Derby, and I’m very happy to have won it. It’s my first, and that’s a thing that you remember for ever,” Panov said with a big smile on his face at the winner’s ceremony “To be sure, it wasn’t an easy race, and there were places where it got really complicated, but the filly made her way through, and then she found some extra strength for the finish. We fought it out. Poldi’s Liebling put a lot of pressure on us, but she’s a very good filly, and we won,” the jockey said. He has been trying unsuccessfully to win our blue riband since 2010. His last previous ride in the Czech Republic had been in the Oaks in 2016. But this win in the Derby had put all his previous experiences into the shade!

 

I have to thank Bauyrzhan Murzabayev a lot. He got this ride for me. Originally, he was going to ride the German horse [Poldi’s Liebling], but he picked up a suspension, so he didn’t get to ride in the race,” Panov said. “I talked everything through perfectly with the trainer. I was told all about the filly and got videos of her races. So I knew what I was getting into, and I was prepared.” And that is how it turned out. Although it was a rough race, he came through it with flying colours on a filly that is trained at Velká Chuchle, though that was just about the only Czech thing about her. And who can tell, Murzabayev’s absence from the saddle of Poldi’s Liebling may have been the decisive factor.

 

If I can, I’ll ride her in her next race. I’ve already talked about it with her trainer,” Wladimir Panov added. Igor Endaltsev has said that the filly’s next run could be in the Slovak Derby, and if she maintains her performance on a top Central European level, it is no fantasy to imagine that Panov could win two blue ribands within a single month in countries where Slav languages that he can understand a little are spoken. “In Germany there are plenty of people from the Czech Republic and Slovakia working in the stables. I manage to communicate somehow in Czech, the idea always gets through,” the winning jockey in the 2018 Czech Derby explained in unexpectedly good Czech. 

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