August 19th at Pardubice was a pleasantly warm summer day, the going was good, and the ploughed fields were neither dusty nor muddy. The two major races both had bearing on the Velka Pardubicka (October 8th).
Peruán, triple winner of the Velka Pardubicka (1998 – 2000), has passed on at the age of 29.He was very near to being the only horse in the history of the VP to win the race four times in four successive years.
Greg Wroblewski is on the move again. He is currently packing up and taking his family and 21 horses to Mimoň.
July 2017 has been a warm month, though there have only been a limited number of very hot days, and there has been some rain. In some places, though not in Prague 6, there have been heavy thunderstorms and hailstorms. There has not been enough rain to cause flooding in major rivers, although, as I have often pointed out, far too many places in the Czech Republic are only 48 hours of steady rain away from flooding.
After taking second place in each of the first three Czech classics in 2016, owner Jiří Travníček (Pegas) and trainer Dalibor Török went one better in the Czech Oaks at Karlovy Vary on July 23rd.
On behalf of the Czech horseracing community, Dostihový svět expresses its condolences to the family of Stephen Yarborough, an experienced handler at the mobile starting stalls at Haydock Park, who was run over by the stalls in a fatal accident at the racecourse on Friday.
Slovakia had to wait 25 years for the first filly to win the local Derby. This year’s popular winner, German-bred Zoriana, by Jukebox Jury (IRE), out of Zambuka (FR) (Zieten (USA)), is trained by Zuzana Kubovičová and owned PD Senica. The winning owner’s colours were carried to victory in the early 1990s by Quirinus, which then went on the run in the Aintree Grand National.
The biggest topic in Czech racing in June was How to make sense of the Czech Derby? It was a weird race. There were 16 runners, and 7 of the first 8 were total outsiders, offered at 20:1 or more by our miserly on-course bookmaker! Of the first 6 horses at the halfway point, none finished higher than 10th! Of course, there is no clear logical explanation for a result like this, and there is no need to expect one.
By public transport
Six Czech-trained chasers and hurdlers will line up for races on Swedish Grand National day at Strömsholm on Saturday. Three are trained by Stanislav Popelka, and the other three by Radim Bodlák. Both of these trainers have made the long journey to central Sweden before, as have most of the horses.
