There were 9 races on the card for the June meeting at Pardubice, and five of them were won by jockey Jan Faltejsek, on Roscoff, on Sardinie, on unbeaten New Friend, and then in the qualification race on Korfu, trained by his wife, Alžběta. He rounded off his five-timer on George of Beaumont, which was never headed in his race.
“I don’t know when I’ve ever ridden five winners in a day, and it’s not so important. The main thing is to succeed,” jockey Jan Faltejsek said modestly. He does not often get carried away with emotions. But after his winning streak leading up to victory in the Slavia Insurance Cup on Korfu he exclaimed “I’m really happy about this one. I believe in him. My wife and I have been working on him for five years.” This is a horse whose sire (Blue Coral) and dam (Kolymbia) both ran in the colours of Jiří Charvát. The horse not only jumped well, but was mainly less impulsive than in the first qualification race, where he finished down in 11th place.
The 2nd qualification race for the 134th Velka Pardubicka with Slavia Insurance, was run as the Slavia Insurance Cup over a distance of 5200 metres, 600 metres shorter than the three other VP qualification races at Pardubice racecourse. Un Rêve D’Automne, ridden by Jaroslav Myška set the pace. At the second fence, Jan Odložil on Yara lost his stirrups. Although he was able to rectify the situation and continue in the race, Yara made another mistake at the French Jump, and continued without his rider. Player (Marcel Novák) took over the lead. Santa Klara (Josef Bartoš), was in the rear, together Star (Marek Stromský) following his usual waiting strategy. After the Drop, in the middle of the race, Aeneas (Jan Kratochvíl) went to the head of the field, followed by Player and Zatar (James Best). That was still the order when the horses came on to the grass track with about 600 metres to run. Korfu, Aeneas and Santa Klara took the last fence together, but Korfu finished a little more strongly than the other two. However, the Velka Pardubicka is over a considerably longer distance, and it remains to be seen whether that will suit Korfu. Perhaps the Faltejsek team will want to try another qualification test, in August, in which the horse would have to run 600 metres further. Korfu’s owner Jiří Charvát is thinking seriously about running the horse in August.
After two of the four qualification races, 23 horses have met the qualification requirements for the 134th running of the Velka Pardubicka with Slavia Insurance on Sunday, October 13th.
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