Dr Jiří Charvát served as president of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic from 2014 until 2019. He took over from Aleša Jakub, who was president for a brief period after Václav Luka, senior, was acrimoniously removed after serving as president for a period of 17 years.

As chairman of the Charvát Group, Jiří Charvát is a very busy and very dynamic entrepreneur in the field of hydraulics and lubricants. It is hard to imagine how he could have found time to serve as president of the Jockey Club. I imagine, and I hope, that he is happy that an apparently suitable successor has emerged to take over from him.

General Josef Bečvář is a retired Czech army officer who served as the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic from 2015 to 2018. He was born in 1958. He has owned a couple of racehorses since 2012, with some successes but only in small races. As a recently retired general, he may have enough time, energy, contacts in high places and social prestige to become an influential president of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic.