By JIM WELLS
Clyde Peterson and Tim Fella, a couple of friendly guys from Chicago, have known each other for 20 years and have been involved in racing for the past 10.
About 2 ½ years ago they teamed up as horse owners and called the collaboration “Last Call Racing Partnership.”
“We were getting kicked out of a lot of places at closing time,” Peterson explained.
One of them was on Friday night in Shakopee. “Yeah, they were there for last call,” said Richie Scherer, who trains their horse Mizzcan’tbewrong.
Last call became first call for a number of Canterbury Park patrons Saturday afternoon.
Jockey Paul Nolan was named Canterbury Classic jockey on Saturday’s card, meaning that if he won two races beer and pop would be reduced to 1985 prices.
Nolan won Saturday’s seventh race on a 5-year-old gelding named Tytus for Web Gems Stable of Bloomington. Then, in the feature race, the eighth, Nolan rated Mizzcan’tbewrong for a stretch run and easily beat seven rivals in the $50,000 HBPA Mile.
“She’s a nice filly,” Fella said while watching a replay of the race.
Mizzcan’tbewrong returned $4 as the even-money favorite in a race that had fans excited for the past week.
The race featured a full field of 12 and a winner so tough to pick that the morning line favorite, Si Si Mon Amie, was 4-1.
There was something for everyone: two local horses, ship-ins and even the defending champion in the $100,000 Lady Canterbury.
A great race–on the grass.
And it was ruined by the rain.
The race was pulled off the turf at mid morning and moved onto the main track.
The switch resulted in four scratches: Cape Cod Bay, Si Si Mon Amie, Couple Whiles and Postivelycharming.
And that turned what was anticipated to be a great race into a merely good race.
One of the scratches was Si Si Mon Amie, trained by Anthony Granitz and a winner of nearly $150,000. Also sidelined was locally stabled Couple Whiles, who has won four times and hit the board a total of nine times from 12 starts on the Canterbury turf.
Cape Cod Bay, owned by Overbrook Farm, was coming off two nice wins at Churchill Downs and Arlington Park and was also scratched.
Positivelycharming, owned by Glen Hill Farm and trained by Tom Proctor, was a 6-1 morning line choice and was the fourth scratch from the field.
So some of the speed was gone and that changed strategies for most of the runners.
Scherer and Nolan conferred and discovered they had both been thinking along similar lines. They figured Scott Stevens, riding Fabulous Babe, owned by Bob Ryan and trained by Mac Robertson, had to go to the lead.
Nolan and Scherer decided to take things as they developed. If Mizzcan’tbewrong, who likes to run on the front, got the lead and could settle into her own pace, so be it.
If not, they would go to plan B, settle into the top flight somewhere, relax and take a run at the end. The race presented plan B, with Fabulous Babe setting a hot pace and Mizzcan’tbewrong and Quiet Queen, the defending Lady Canterbury champion, stalking the lead within a couple of lengths.
Nolan wasn’t sure if he was riding a winner at the 3-8ths pole. “She wasn’t getting hold of the track. I didn’t know if I could win,” he said.
When he asked the Mizzen Mast filly to run, he changed his mind. “Then the racehorse in her appeared,” Nolan said.
Unable to grab the dirt earlier, Mizzcan’tbewrong dug in and won going away, finishing 4 ¾ lengths in front of Fabulous Babe, who had a neck on Quiet Queen.
Peterson and Fella were ecstatic. They came from Chicago and it was worth the trip.
The filly they claimed at Arlington Park last September made it worth while. And there could be more to come.
They just purchased an unraced three-year-old named Musicstreet Menance.
He’s Mizzcan’tbewrong’s little brother.
