BUTLER LEARNED FROM THE BEST
by Jim Wells It is called the graveyard of champions, but Saratoga Race Track is also the birthplace of hope, where a boy’s dream flashed across his mind in vivid technicolor on his numerous visits there as a youngster. His father sold programs there as a youngster himself, buying them for ten cents, selling them […]
The Other Minnesota Get-Together
By Noah Joseph While much of the state is swept up in the excitement of the Minnesota State Fair, horse racing will have a different kind of get-together. This Sunday is the 25th Minnesota Festival of Champions at Canterbury Park, a day when all races are restricted to Minnesota bred horses including eight stakes races, […]
VON OHLENS RAISED STATE-BRED CHAMPS
Someone tells you that if you take the plunge, you’ll win a $200,000 stakes race nearly off the bat, you’ll have success wherever you go and you just generally won’t believe your good luck, would you do it? Would you hop in the vehicle one day and leave rural Alpha, Minnesota, for rural Oklahoma City, […]
Heliskier Rose To The Top
by Jim Wells They purchased the land 50 years ago and at various times it teemed with horses, but now when she looks out the back door there is only one. He is lord of a spacious paddock and moves slowly from place to place, grazing as he does, easy-going and amiable as always in […]
Canterbury Park Hall of Fame to Add Four Members
The Canterbury Park Hall of Fame Committee today announced the Class of 2018 inductees. The four newest members, who will be honored in a Sept. 1 ceremony, include jockey Dean Butler; Minnesota HBPA President and racehorse owner and breeder Jack Walsh; quarter horse breeders Rodney and Sylvia Von Ohlen; and retired Minnesota-bred racehorse Heliskier. These […]
Bushrod Wins 1st Mystic Lake Turf Express
By Jim Wells Only in horse racing do the storylines sometimes seem to come out of a children’s storybook, heroes emerging from unlikely places under unusual circumstance; little guys being lifted to the level of those who dominate the world up above; heartwarming tales of the men and women who keep the world turning but […]
It’s a Jungle In There
By Rebecca Roush As the 2018 racing season begins to wind down at Canterbury Park, Kevin Gorg, former Canterbury Paddock Analyst and current handicapper extraordinaire, is still busy looking over future races and creating tip sheets for guests to purchase. The famous green sheet – Gorg’s Power Plays – are sold for $2 on live […]
Winning Rider Raises Tribal Issues
By Jim Wells It is a simple matter to misinterpret the title for the entry song that preceded Friday’s Indian Relay Races, “Every time I bring a horse into the arena, I give it away.” At first thought, we’re talking claiming horses, are we not? We are not. The song which preceded the first Indian […]
Races Of The Past, and A New One For The Present
By Noah Joseph This Saturday, Canterbury Park is introducing a new stakes race, the $100,000 Mystic Lake Turf Express. The race is five furlongs on the turf and has attracted a competitive field nine. Since Canterbury opened in 1985, many big stakes have been held at the Shakopee, Minn. racetrack. Let’s take a look at […]
Tribal Racing Once Again A Hit
By JIM WELLS The song was beat out on the drums and accompanied by the old lyrical ululations that brought it all to life, an appropriate accompaniment to what was about to take place. Lakota Sioux singers introduced Thursday night’s opening Indian relay races, the first of three such evenings, with a song entitled, “We […]