- This topic has 19 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 19 years, 3 months ago by
.
- Posts
Sadly none of the 12 entries from the UK Ireland etc run in this year’s velka. Robin Healey from "Paddock Revue"<br>in Prague reports:
No foreign runners in the Velka Pardubicka<br>The runners and riders for the 115th Ceska Pojistovna Velka Pardubicka were announced on October 27th. None of the 12 foreign entries was declared to run. Other non-runners include Registana and Red Dancer, as already announced, and also Retriever, who finished 2nd in the race in 2004. The 17 entries are headed by Maskul and Decent Fellow, 1st and 2nd in the 2005 race, and Hastaven, who won the August qualifying race in some style. Other horses that will be fancied include Iraklion, winner of the May qualifying race, and Ner, 2nd in the June qualifying race, behind Decent Fellow. The winner should come from among these five, as none of the others has achieved much.
<br>Riders in the Velka Pardubicka<br>Dirk Fuhrmann will ride Maskul, as he did in last year’s race. Trainer Frantisek Holcak also brings in a foreign jockey, John Paul Johnson, for his other runner, Juniusz. As expected, Josef Vana’s stable jockey Josef Bartos will ride Decent Fellow. The other horses trained by Josef Van’a will be ridden by Tomas Hurt (Ner) and Josef Van’a snr (Juventus). Josef Van’a is nowadays almost retired, having ridden only 8 races so far this season, winning two of them. Wrbna Racing often bring in a foreign jockey, but Hastaven, who has an excellent chance, will be ridden as usual by stable jockey Jan Faltejsek. Italian- based Czech jockey Jiri Kamenicek rides Iraklion, winner of the May qualifying race. Radek Havelka, stable jockey for the Holcaks, rides Cziesymir. Intrepid trainers Martina Ruzickova and Pavel Slozil will be riding Chailand and Polarnik, respectively. Two less known names are Martin Liska, who will ride Icare du Renom and amateur rider Pavel Horcicka, who will be on Harry the Beaver. Matrtin Liska has ridden 11 winners in 14 seasons, three of them this year. Pavel Horcicka has had just two winners in the 13 seasons. Neither is likely to improve his record in this year’s Velka Pardubicka. The other jockeys are Vaclav Luka (Glogloglo), Michal Kohl (Brambusch), Dusan Andres (Vajgara, who was surprisingly supplemented after the September qualifying race), Marek Stromsky (Eliska Premyslovna) and Jaroslav Myska (Klip).
<br>Watering at Pardubice <br>Pardubice has enjoyed a long period of warm, sunny weather that has left the ground firm. As the forecast is for continued dry weather, the Pardubice course has been watered continuously since about September 20th, and this will continue until the race day, October 8th. We are assured that the going for the Velka Pardubicka will not be rock hard, but some real rainfall would be a welcome event.
<br>Ceska pojistovna, sponsor of the Velka Pardubicka<br>Ceska pojistovna, the Pardubice-based insurance company, is sponsoring races at Pardubice for the 13th year. The total prizemoney for this year’s race is 4 500 000 crowns, the same as last year, and the equal-highest prize ever for a horse race in the Czech Republic.
<br>Best turned out horse<br>Diane Hill is sponsoring the Best Turned Out Horse in each race at the Velka Pardubicka meeting for the 10th successive year. Since Diane and John Smith, who sadly died two years ago, started sponsoring BTO, there has been a big improvement in the appearance and also the performance of Czech racehorses.<br> <br>Robin<br>
What a shame that Pal Kallai died of a brain haemorrage this morning. He collapsed on Sunday before racing and has been in a coma until this morning.
His last winner was on 24 September at Kinscem Park and was 8 times champion of Hungary. He was 73 years old.<br>
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.