THE best Czech sprinter for many years, Mikesh (Majestic Missile), has ended his racing career. The nine-year-old won eight of his 41 races, was runner-up eight times and placed third on the same number of occasions. He earned some €65,000 and was rated the champion sprinter in the Czech Republic three times.

Besides easily winning all the major races in his home country over six furlongs, he secured four blacktype places in Germany and Italy. He was the first Czech-trained horse to race in the Group 2 Goldene Peitsche at Baden Baden, but he was a great favourite over the straight course at Hoppegarten in Berlin, where he placed three years in a row in listed race.

“In my view, he was the best East European sprinter since Overdose,” says the German champion jockey Filip Minarik who rode him. Mikesh raced for owner Kelso Stables and trainer Tomáš Šatra.

Named after a famous talking cat from a fairy-tale by painter Josef Lada, Mikesh was one of the best-loved horses in the Czech Republic. He was popular thanks to his name, a Facebook profile with nearly 1,000 fans and for his unusual back story.

Bred by Irishman Kevin Foley, the bay colt was unsold as a yearling for €1,400 and then purchased for mere €1,800 as an unbroken two-year-old. Contrary to many of his peers, he was not based in a professional racing stable, but trained by his owner in fields and meadows near the South-Bohemian town of Tabor, renowned for its Hussite past.

The horse’s enormous popularity contributed to his sire, Majestic Missile, being imported to the Czech Republic where he stands at Darhorse at a fee of 20,000Kr (about €800). The former Ballyhane Stud sire won the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes and Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes at two before adding a listed success at four and the Group 3 Prix du Petit Couvert at five. He ran third in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes.

At stud his best runners have been Katla (three-time listed winner), Majestic Myles (dual listed winner), listed winners Ballista and New Planet, and the stakes-placed winners Abstraction, Elysian Flyer and Mikesh. Majestic Missile is a son of Royal Applause (Waajib).

On the dam side Mikesh was just one of a pair of named progeny from the four known foals produced by Avena Sativa before she was sent to the Czech Republic. That daughter of Polish Precedent (Danzig) landed a mile and a half handicap at Galway as a three-year-old in a competitive field of 16, winning by a couple of lengths at 25/1 from the Sheikh Mohammed owned favourite Lowlander. She was subsequently purchased carrying her first foal for just €5,000 by Kevin Foley.

Avena Sativa is one of five winners for her dam One Wild Oat (Shareef Dancer) and she won a minor race in France. She was well related though, her siblings including the Group 1 Sydney Cup winner Marooned (Mill Reef), the Group 1 Irish St Leger winner Arctic Owl (Most Welcome) and the winning juvenile Much Too Risky (Bustino).

Though the least talented of that trio on the racecourse, Much Too Risky has left quite a mark on the breed. Her 12 winners include the Group 2 Princess of Wales’s Stakes winner Little Rock (Warning), the Group 2 Prix de Pomone winner and classic-placed Whitewater Affair (Machiavellian), and the Group 3 Musidora Stakes winner and classic-paced Short Skirt (Diktat).

Much Too Risky is also the grandam of the Japanese champion and Group 1 sire Victoire Pisa (New Universe), Group 1 winner Asakusa Den’en (Singspiel), and leading juvenile and Irish-based sire Cappella Sansevero (Showcasing), while she is third dam of the 2012 champion juvenile filly in Japan, Robe Tissage (War Emblem).

Mikesh will be based with Josef Pšurný in Moravia. His stud fee has not been set.

Breeders, stallion masters and readers are invited to contact Leo Powell at leopowell@theirishfield.ie with news and updates for the column, and to visit our website www.theirishfield.ie for daily breeding news