I enjoyed watching the last day of the Czech horseracing season on television. A well-devised programme of races attracted good fields for the races, on the flat and over fences, and a bright afternoon attracted a good crowd to Slušovice, a part of the country that is starved of good quality racing. We television viewers were well served by the television team, whose photographers did their usual fine job. Martin Cáp and Libor Šimůnek were well-informed presenters, and Marek Svačina read the races. With this team, nothing could go wrong, and nothing did.

Slušovice racecourse hosted enormous crowds in the 1980s, when the remote Slušovice collective farm, under the leadership of a young man called František Čuba, started producing computers and selling - on race days - a range of electronic and other products not available on the Czech market. After 1989, this remarkable example of socialist enterprise, unsupported by the new regime, collapsed almost immediately and with few traces. Even the racecourse, far from receiving consistent national and local support as a cultural monument, was allowed to languish. A small group of local enthusiasts, most notably Zdeněk Karlach, has somehow managed keep reviving racing at Slušovice, with fluctuating support from the local authorities. There are some trainers at the racecourse and plenty of others in the region. The Napajedla stud is nearby.

A good idea that has become a tradition at Slušovice racecourse is to put on  the shortest flat race of the Czech season, over 900 metres, followed half an hour later by the longest race of the season, over 3 900 metres. There were also two Category 1 steeplechases, one of which was the Velká slušovická. This race was won by Delight My Fire, which had fallen in the Velka Pardubicka after a disappointing season. Delight My Fire set the pace, and won comfortably. She will only be nine years old next year. Her jockey, Sertash Ferhanov, had a very easy ride, and trainer Radim Bodlák said that she is fine. Delight My Fire is likely to travel less next year, and will be aimed towards the Velka Pardubicka again, this time via one of the qualification races at Pardubice. In the hurdles race, Intisari, one of our best stayers on the flat in the last two years, made his debut over hurdles, winning very easily and looking like a very promising jumper.