Time passes, empires rise and fall, familiar scenery falls victim to the vicissitudes of progress and memory but feelings often remain constant.
So it was that Janice Chumas stood in the winner’s circle after Sunday’s second race, reveling in the afterglow of victory that during the mid 1990s was so familiar.
“It feels good to be back here,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
Jan and her husband, Connie, are from Eau Claire and once visited the winner’s circle in Shakopee with regularity, campaigning Valid Leader, a Canterbury Hall of Fame horse, and Dr. Trotter among others.
In those days, Valid Leader supported the Chumas stable on his own.
Now they have a single horse in training with Doug Oliver, who has conditioned their horses from the start. That horse, a 4-year-old named Metro Molly, broke the maiden ranks Sunday and produced some nostalgia for the owners.
Metro Molly, you see, is by Mutakddim from the Pleasant Tap mare Tap Three Times, once campaigned with success at Canterbury by Jan and Connie.
Jan has a theory on the filly Metro Molly she hopes holds true. Tap Three Times was a fourth foal and Metro Molly is her fourth foal. “That’s my theory. We’ll see,” Jan said.
Part of that theory is based on the lack of success Jan and Connie had with another Tap Three Times foal _ Tapestry in Motion, who finished his racing career last season and is now in a new line of work.
“We gave him away as a hunter and jumper,” Jan said. “He should be good at that; he used to rear up in the gate.”
The win was not only special to Jan and Connie but to Oliver, too.
Metro Molly provided Oliver, Canterbury’s leading trainer three straight years, culminating in 2001, with his stable’s first win of the season.
GEORGE BANGO AND THE BACKSIDE DENTAL PLAN
In addition to a four-leaf clover on his silks, jockey Scott Stevens had a patch with the initials GAB as he headed to the paddock for Sunday’s sixth race to ride Hills of Ireland.
The shamrock is part of the colors of Dana Isaacson’s stable. The initials GAB are a memorial to George Bango, a long-time trainer at Canterbury who died a few months ago.
Stevens, Bango and Isaacson teamed up to win the 2004 $50,000 Claiming Crown Iron Horse with Superman Can.
Isaacson, a Bloomington dentist with Point Family Dental, opened an office on Friday in the backside quarters previously occupied by the track chaplain. He donates his services from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays. Scott Rake, an oral surgeon from Dakota Valley Dental, will offer his services on Wednesdays.
With Isaacson in the paddock before the race were representatives of the Argosy Dental Hygiene Clinic who will provide dental assistants to the backside clinic.
A SALUTE TO THE STANLEY CUP
Ry Eikleberry and veteran Jose Ferrer had three wins apiece on Sunday’s card, not all that unusual unless you consider that the wins for both riders were consecutive.
Eikleberry rode the first three winners on the card and was later asked if he had heard the term “pure hat trick.” “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’ve done this once or twice before.”
Ferrer, a veteran of East Coast tracks, rode the winners of races six through eight. He has ridden three winners on a card several times.
His best efforts, he recalled, were five races on a single card. He did that three times. “In 1984 I was the first rider to do it at the Meadowlands,” he said. “I did it two days in a row once at Garden State.”
CANADA OH CANADA
Trainer/owner Bryan Porter, who campaigns the popular Senor Smiley at Canterbury among others, collected a nice check for his stable on Sunday at Woodbine Racetrack in Rexdale, Ontario.
Yukari finished second in an optional allowance/claiming with a purse of $77,000, earning $16,000.
MINNESOTA STALLION BREEDERS’ AND NORTH CENTRAL DERBY
Holland North, the winner of last year’s Grade III Northlands Futurity, added another stakes win on Sunday under Dylan Williams, who recorded his first quarter horse stakes win. 
The winner is trained by perennial quarter horse training champ Ed Ross Hardy and is owned by Bob and Julie Peterson of Cokato, Minn.
“We had some problems with him earlier,” said Hardy, “but he came out of the gate strong and was still running that way at the finish.”
Shake Em Diva, with Jerry Vaughan up , was second. First Hand Luke, trained by Hardy, ridden by Eikleberry and owned by Rod Von Ohlen of Alpha, Minn.was third.
