This afternoon Orphee des Blins, the supreme heroine of this year’s Velka Pardubicka, faces a baptism by fire at Cheltenham. Jan Faltejsek has travelled from France to ride the mare. Jan Faltejsek is one of few Czech jockeys to have already ridden at Cheltenham [for example, on Knockara Beau in this year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup], so he will be on familiar territory. However, he has not ridden before on the crosscountry course, where the race will be today.

“I’m looking forward to it a lot,” Faltejsek says from the course in Cheltenham. “I like it very much here, and I think the mare will like it too. I don’t see why not. She likes a race with a good pace, and she is an excellent jumper. You always have a chance in a race like this. And as [trainer] Greg Wroblewski says, if we’d stayed at home we would only have been able to ask ourselves what might have been.”

The jockey knows racing in the UK well, and his views are well founded. He adds: “The local people rate her chances, and that’s the main thing. We’ll see how it turns out, but I’m certainly really looking forward to the race.”

 (Translated from the Czech language pages of Dostihovy svet)