Horseracing is a place of elegant suits, big business and politics. But not in Bratislava's Petržalka borough. At its racetrack, there is no luxury lodge, though its director is picky when it comes to manners.
The referee tower offers some more comfort, but it is still nowhere near the standards that visitors are used to, for example, in Prague or Budapest. Even a local hippodrome in Pisa, Italy, offers better service than the Bratislava racetrack, the largest and most important one in Slovakia since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. This year it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Despite an investment debt, the local derbies attract thousands of people every year. The state-owned enterprise has mostly been managed by one man - Marián Šurda, who is the director today. Since the Velvet Revolution, there have been almost 20 agriculture ministers to whom he reports, and has been dismissed three times.
The reason was the same - he was blamed for not knowing how to manage money. Since January 2024, he has been in office again and in recent weeks he has faced criticism from the operators of food stands whose rent he is increasing, as well as from employees with whom he wants to sign new contracts. "I came here to stabilise the racetrack, which I received in bad shape, and I do what I can," says Šurda.
He called the people who replaced him before "inadequate substitutes". "It's an atypical sport that usually a whole family falls for. Sometimes, a horse unites several generati.