Dr. Bowman’s Inn Filling Fast
It’s like trying to remove sand that slides back into the hole after being piled at the edge. Sometimes it’s even worse, like trying to bail out a boat that is filling with water faster than it can be removed. The effort we speak of here belongs to Dr. Dick Bowman, whose pastures sometimes fill […]
A Novel Idea for a Racehorse
Who knows, maybe someday this particular thoroughbred will appear in a best-selling novel, assigned perhaps to literary flashbacks or streams of consciousness when the world was just starting to emerge in the young writer’s imagination. There might be scenes in which she directs the anxious horse through the next jump, reveling in the adrenaline rush […]
SecretsforAshley Enjoying Rodeo
The lyrics to Hadley Murphy’s song might not fit Chris LeDoux’s lamentation of the loved one left behind while he chases the buckle every cowboy – or cowgirl – covets. The rodeo, in this instance, had to wait on Hadley. There is college, of course. Murphy is a senior at Winona State studying mathematics and […]
MN Retired Racehorse Project
The list includes a mare named Revenge Tea, a gelding called Valise, another called Just One Spot. There is a dark bay mare called Hopscotch Ali. Or, race fans, remember Topper? There are six in all at the farm in Lakeville and four more ready for adoption in foster care. The lineup of animals in […]
A Barrel of Fun
He was not very fast on the race track, but plenty fast in the career that followed. He had a short, unspectacular first career, but has had an exceptionally long and illustrious second one. He was bred by Canterbury Park Hall of Fame breeder Bob Morehouse. He was owned and raced in partnership by Hall of […]
Youthful Horse Trading
When you’re 17-years old and a horse lover to boot, you’re willing to do just about anything to put a nice horse in your barn, and that’s exactly what Ashley Jonas did. The junior-to-be from St. Joseph gave up part of her weekends – to do barn chores nonetheless – in exchange for a 14-year-old […]
Some Like a Different Game
She likes to chew on her lead rope and occasionally this otherwise well-behaved mare will unplug the brake lights by disconnecting the the electrical cord between the truck and trailer. Then again, she once went by the name It’s All About Mary so it might be nothing more than a residual personality quirk. Now known simply […]
What’s in a Name?
The new owner of Spring Meadow Farm gave some thought to changing its name upon taking over 11 years ago, but a word of advice from an in-law put an immediate kabosh to that notion. “She told me that you never change the name of a boat,” Mary Jo Cody said.”If you do, it might sink.” […]
A Second Career for Racehorses
Early in the last century the Milwaukee and Northern Pacific railroads transported settlers intent on farming to various stops in southwestern North Dakota. It wasn’t long before many of those hopeful homesteaders discovered they’d been duped, that the Little Missouri breaks were nearly worthless for producing anything but heartaches and couldn’t provide a living for […]
