Ten entries make up the fifth leg of the Crystal Cup at Wroclow, hard on the heels of last Sunday’s Velka Pardubicka. The PLN 172,000 (€40,000) has attracted 8 candidates from across the border in the Czech Republic to complement two home-trained prospects.

Form on many of these is quite sporadic given the race programme across Poland, the Czech Republic and northern Italy. Nevertheless, the performance of Velka Pardubicka 6th Santa Klara gives a line on several of the runners.

Go Canada, Irreverencieux, White Wood, and Pretty King were behind Santa Klara at Wroclaw at the start of September, Pretty King the best of these 3l behind. The  G W Wroblewski – trained 5 year old has since run a respectable 9l third in a Grade I steeplechase at Merano at the end of September, and a repeat of that performance would have him go close.

Scuderia Aichner and Josef Vana Jnr teamed up last year to win the Crystal Cup, largely on the exploits of one horse, Gap Pierji. They are better-prepared this time around, with several horses running in their distinctive black and yellow. Two entries, Gap Pierji and Beau Saonois, represent the stable this time around.

Gap Pierji has been held back for this race, scratched from the far hotter Velka Pardubicka a week earlier, and this is a creditable chance to add a second win to his 2024 record, following a victory in a €30,000 chase at Merano in June. he travelled to France the following month to finish behind Ivresse d’Estruval, in itself no poor performance as the Lageneste & Macaire – trained gelding is no slouch. Most recently, he was pulled up behind Zubiena in the Merano leg of the Crystal Cup at the end of September.

French-bred Beau Saonois has been running creditably but in modest class races. His last three runs have all been at Merano, the most recent a 3/4l second to Zubiena, the Crystal Cup winner of 3 weeks ago. A good run by either, or both, would put Vana back in the driving seat in the Crystal Cup leaderboard, where he is languishing 9 pts behind Patrice Quinton.

Fresh from his dead-heat triumph at Pardubice, Török Dalibor fields Ironika, who comes here fresh from an 8l win over 4,600m at Pardubice in the third week of September. He has ground to make up on Gap Pierji based on the Merano run in June, in which Irreverencieux was pulled up.

Sophist and Go Canada represent the Poles yard in the Czech Republic, and of the pair, Go Canada has shown more consistent form, with a string of third-placed finishes that suggest a lack of finishing speed. Sophist had Go Canada behind when winning at Wroclaw in April, but that form has since been reversed this autumn.

Jan Faltejsek runs Molly Power, a 7 year old German-bred, but the gelding has a bit to find, and this distance will be well beyond anything he’s tried to date.

The 10 are completed by home-trained Nitro, handled by Eric Porębna, who comes here on the back of a 6l victory at Wroclaw at the start of September