There were lots of reasons that Cam Casby considered the $12,500-added Bob Morehouse Stakes a special race on Thursday night.
#1 was the fact that the winning horse is the last one she and her mother bred together.
#2 is the fact that her mother is in a Maplewood nursing home and unable to attend the races any longer and Cam wants to present her with a DVD of the race.
#3 it was the Bob Morehouse, a special name to anyone interested in quarter horses in the state of Minnesota.
#4 the winning horse underwent surgery last autumn after injuring both knees in a fall after leaving the gate.
#5 the win lifted the winner’s sire, Easanon, into the top 25 all time stakes producers among quarter horses.
Cam might want to re-arrange that order, maybe even add to it today, but in the rush of Thursday night excitement that pretty much covered the basics.
“It’s very special for a lot of reasons,” Casby said after CS Arc Light outran the favorites in a field of six to win as the 8-1 choice on the board with Ismael Suarez Ricardo in the irons, with a winning time of 20.440.
The Casbys thus added their first Bob Morehouse victory to an impressive list of wins.
On hand in the winner’s circle afterwards was large a delegation helping Casby celebrate and also representing the family of Bob Morehouse, a crowd that included his daughter Bobbi, and his sister, Anne Krawzyk.
Cs Arc Light went to both knees in a race last year and trainer Vic Hanson and Casby discovered some time later that he had chips in both knees. Surgery followed in the fall, and Thursday night the horse demonstrated that he is indeed back, winning for the third time in 15 career starts.
Hanson had some encouraging words for Casby shortly before the race.
Basically what he said was that CS Arc Light was as ready as a horse could be.
“I had a good feeling. I felt it right here,” Hanson said, tapping the chest area over his heart.
CS Arc Light proved him right, digging in to draw off in the final 75 yards of the 400-yard sprint, finishing ahead of Western Fun, Six It Up and Dutch Wagon.
This blog was written by Canterbury Staff Writer Jim Wells. Wells was a longtime sportswriter at the Pioneer Press and is a member of the Canterbury Park Hall of Fame.
Photo Credit: Coady Photography
