EJC 2020: the Cup for Vincent Cheminaud

Sunday part of the great racing weekend in Chuchle Arena Prague, already in significantly better weather than on Saturday, belonged to the sixth running of the European Jockey Cup with nine jockeys from four countries (for the first time also with female jockey, wild card holder Martina Havelková). The overall winner with 30 points was the Vincent Cheminaud from France, who joined the nomination a few days before the event as a substitute for the injured Christophe Soumillon. The second place was taken by the last year's Czech jockey-champion Adam Florian (27 points), the third place went to the nine-times Slovak jockey-champion Jaroslav Línek (14 points).

Otherwise, Sunday's program was dominated by trainer Arslangirej Šavujev and the Russian Racing Syndicate team, who achieved three wins in the most important races of the day. Šavujev waited for the first victory of this year until mid-September, but during the Prague weekend his horses won a half of the eight Class A races!

Vincent Cheminaud, who performed at the EJC in 2017 (then winning the Leram Million with Ultimate Fight), built a decisive lead in the first two points of the program, which he dominated with hitherto undefeated horses. Silver Adam Florian, on the other hand, had the strongest end of the day, he moved to the silver podium with wins in the last two races of the day, Jaroslav Línek won the final bronze with a triumph in the main race, because the fourth Jan Verner achieved the same points, but in case of equality of points from the top of the program.

The main race of the schedule was traditionally EJC Leram Million (Class A /local Gd-3/, 7f, 1,2 mio CZK), in which 4yo grey colt, as a maiden horse, Politicum (j. Línek, tr. Šavujev, own. Russian Racing Syndicate, 5:1) won very impressively by eight lenghts. Another wins for Šavujev and Russian Racing Syndicate brought also still maiden horse Vi Fi (j. Cheminaud, 5:1) in EJC BAK stavební společnost Stakes (Class A /local listed/, 5 1/2f, 2yo, 600 ths. CZK), who reached the time 1:06,77 and broke only one day old track-distance record and 5yo colt Cape Freedom (j. Florian, 3:1-sec.fav.), only seven days after púrevious win in Carlsbad, in the final race EJC Lokotrans Middle (Class A, /local listed/, 9f, 700 ths. CZK). Finally, until Sunday only Class D winner 3yo filly Wellunca (j. Florian, tr. Hana Kabelková, own. EPICOS, 9:1) became surprising winner of EJC Hrubymoving Transport Stakes (Class A /local listed/ 11f, 600 ths. CZK) for 3yo fillies and mares.

Results