There were three Quarter Horse trial races yesterday, the first three Q races of the meet. The trial races qualified the fastest 10 horses for the Gopher State Derby. Of those 10 qualifiers, four of them (One Famous Sign, Corona Springs, Heza Prospect and Eyes A Racin) are trained by last year’s leading Quarter Horse trainer Jason Olmstead. Bob Johnson had a pair of qualifiers (Faster Than Hasta and Toast On Fire), and Rudy Ramirez also had two (Lil Baby Eagle and Tinys Courage). The remaining qualifiers were La Mos Pyc (trained by Lori Harris) and Fast N Famous Jeans (trained by Manuel Mojica Campos). One Famous Sign was the fastest of the 10. The final will be run Saturday, June 10 with a purse of $32,750.
The Canterbury Racing Club 2017 won with their first starter of the meet, Brilliant Belle, trained by Nevada Litfin. She was ridden by Justin Shepherd to a one-length victory and paid $28.40 to win. Find more information about the racing club at www.canterburyracingclub.com .
As jockey Nik Goodwin inches closer and closer to 1,000 career victories (on Thoroughbreds), he is keeping very busy! For the last several years, Goodwin has spent his winters training young horses in Ocala, Florida and riding them for their breezes in the 2 year-old-in-training sales. Last week, there were two such sales that happened to be on opposite ends of the country. Goodwin flew out to California on Sunday night to breeze two-year-olds on Monday for the Barrett’s Sale before taking the red-eye to Maryland to breeze two-year-olds at the Timonium Sales on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Trainer Larry Sterling Jr. had a successful Sunday at Canterbury Park, winning with two of his three runners. He won the 6th race with Quality Indeed and the 8th race with Red Zone. While Sterling had never trained at Canterbury prior to today, he spent several summers at Canterbury as part of the jockey colony. Sterling won 1,565 races from 12,274 starts during his career before retiring in 2010. As a trainer he has run 38 horses, with four winners, three seconds and six thirds. Two of those wins came today.
Racing continues Monday at 12:45. Bulldogs share the stage with thoroughbreds and quarter horses. Two $50,000 stakes will be run on the turf: the Northbound Pride Stakes and the Honor the Hero Stakes.
by Katie Merritt
