A NEW chapter in Swedish thoroughbred racing opened last Sunday when Bro Park staged its first meeting.

The turf and dirt track is located 40km from Stockholm and replaces Taby, which netted a fortune for the Swedish racing authority Svensk Galopp when it was sold to developers, who plan to build 4,000 apartments on the land.

With over 8,000 racegoers, there was an international feel to opening day at Bro Park and among the winners were Irish apprentice Ana O’Brien and British jockeys George Baker and Kevin Stott. Martin Harley and Tadhg O’Shea were also in action. O’Brien won an invitational ladies’ race on dirt aboard the Wido Neuroth-trained Hi Finn. Other jockeys taking part in that race included Chantal Sutherland Kruse (USA), Danielle Johnson and Maija Vance (New Zealand and Australia) and Josephine Gordon from Britain. Hayley Turner was ‘coach’ and they took on five female Swedish riders.

The feature race was the Group 3 Stockholms Stora Pris over nine furlongs on turf and this was won by the eight-year-old Bertolini gelding Coprah. This race had a prize fund of €128,000, while the race Baker won, the Swedish 1000 Guineas, carried €85,000 in prize money.