When racing concludes Saturday, Mac Robertson will have won his eleventh leading trainer title at Canterbury Park. The trophy could have been presented June 3 when Mac took command in the standings and never relinquished the lead.
His purse earnings this season, nearly $1.6 million, are more than the combined total of the trainers in second and third, Bernell Rhone and Robertino Didodoro. He has already eclipsed the all-time purse earnings record in the history of the track. He has 62 wins, 27 more than Rhone, entering the final two days of the season and his starters have hit the board 60 percent of the time.
Mac has been involved in the racing industry his entire life. At the age of 12 he began working for his father Hugh as an assistant trainer. He also worked for other trainers for a couple of years until he decided to go on his own in 1994. Robertson, now 43, scored his first career victory that year at Ak-Sar-Ben Race Track in Omaha, Neb. He saddled only 72 starters under his name through 2004, often overseeing a division of his father Hugh’s stable instead. In 2005, Robertson made a name for himself at Canterbury, winning the first of nine consecutive training titles. He was inducted into the Canterbury Park Hall of Fame in 2011 and is the all-time leader in purse earnings.
This year Mac has again handled several talented horses including 2-year-old Amy’s Challenge who will race in Saturday’s $75,000 Shakopee Juvenile Stakes. Amy’s Challenge won her only start, drawing off by 16 1/2 lengths and earning a 91 Beyer Speed Figure, the highest in the nation for any 2-year-old. Other familiar names from the Robertson stable are Honey’s Sox Appeal, A P Is Loose, and Teddy Time.
Mac spends the winter training at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas before making his annual trek to Shakopee each spring.
