By Noah Joseph
This Saturday, it’s Canterbury Park’s BeerFest (and tickets are available). Fans 21 and older can sample and enjoy multiple craft beers at Canterbury.To quench your thirst for the time being, here are some of the best horses to race at Canterbury that have some relation to drinking in their name.
Friday nights at Canterbury are promoted as Minnesota’s Best Happy Hour, and one filly was always able to keep her fans and connections happy. Happy Hour Honey was that filly. The Minnesota bred was one of the best in her division, taking on, and beating some of the fastest fillies and mares bred in Minnesota during her career, including a win in the 2012 Frances Genter Stakes, and placing in four other stakes. She’s retired in 2014 with four wins, seventeen in the money finishes, and almost $150,000 in earnings.
Bourbon County is considered to be one of the best Minnesota breds in the past decade. The son of Dehere, out of the appropriately named mare Bourbon Blues, he was a horse with a running style as smooth as bourbon. From 2013 to 2017, Bourbon County won eight races, including four stakes. The amazing thing is that he won them both in back-to-back years. Bourbon County won the Minnesota Sprint Championship Stakes in 2014 and 2015,and the 10,000 Lakes Stakes in 2015 and 2016. In addition, he placed in four other stakes. He retired last year with earnings of almost $300,000. He is the fifth highest money winner in Canterbury history, along with being Canterbury’s champion sprinter in 2015 and co-Older Horse of the Year with A.P Is Loose.
When Nomorewineforeddie was on top of his game, he was faster than a cork out of a champagne bottle. The son of Scrimshaw won eight races in his career, five of them stakes. He also won the Minnesota Sprint Championship Stakes three years in a row from 2010 to 2012, and placed in two other stakes. He retired after his third sprint championship score in 2012 with earnings of $226,000.
Like the wine he’s almost named after, Smooth Chiraz is very smooth indeed. The son of Chitoz has put together a fine career, winning six of nineteen starts as of this writing, including three stakes, and placing in two others. Smooth Chiraz is still racing to this day.
Unlike the other horses mentioned, Kitty Wine was not bred in Minnesota and only raced here once, but her place in the history of Canterbury is secured. The daughter of Lemon Drop Kid came to Shakopee to run in the 2015 Lady Canterbury after three stakes defeats in graded company, running against the likes of Tepin among others. Kitty Wine, sent off as the favorite in the Lady Canterbury, kept close to the pace for much of the race, then burst away in the stretch to win under Corey Lanerie. That would be Kitty Wine’s last race, but she got her first and only stakes win right here in Minnesota. She retired with four wins from nineteen starts and earnings of almost $260,000.
