New faces arrived at Canterbury Park earlier this month: Tina and Andrew Ramgeet. Tina is a thoroughbred trainer, while her husband Andrew is a jockey.
Tina is from eastern Ohio, Andrew from Kingston, Jamaica. Both were racetrackers long before they were husband and wife. Andrew rode for several years in his homeland. He was the Jamaican champion rider three times in a career that began in 1978.
“I won 1,300 races there,” Andrew said. “I won eight races in one day once. Rode ten, won eight.” That rare feat occurred at Caymanas Racetrack.
He kept winning when he came to the states as well, more than 1,300 times thus far, riding up and down the east coast.
Tina grew up in a racing family. She earned a degree in education from West Liberty University, met Andrew at Mountaineer Park, got married soon thereafter, and later began raising a family of her own.
Andrew and Tina have been married 13 years now and have three children: A.J. is 8, Aidan is 6, and Catalea is 2. All of them, even the youngest, spend time at the barn, helping out in one way or another.
“This is a family affair,” said Tina, who knows what it’s like being a child in a racing family. Her father was a trainer. “He was gone a lot,” she said.
The importance of being together as a family necessitated the couple finding a racetrack with dates that would accommodate stability.
“We don’t like to be apart too long,” Tina said. They settled on Turf Paradise which races from fall to spring. Canterbury could be the perfect summer home for the Ramgeet family.
Andrew, who was injured at the end of the Turf Paradise meet thus delaying his Shakopee arrival, is represented by agent Richard Grunder. Andrew established solid connections with trainers Robertino Diodoro, Dave Van Winkle and other Phoenix stables already and will quickly settle in here as well. And of course he rides first call for Tina. She has a four-horse stable here but normally trains a dozen or more.
