Iowas Texas Tlp fastest in Gopher State Derby Trials
Iowas Texas Tlp was the fastest of the 10 qualifiers in Sunday’s trials for the $29,200 Gopher State Derby. Nik Goodwin rode for Ed Ross Hardy. The 400 yard final will be run June 12. GOPHER STATE DERBY TRIALS Iowas Texan Tlp E.R.Hardy 20.173 Eagles Span […]
A Mighty Fortune Wins $37,500 MN Stallion Breeders’ Futurity
A Mighty Fortune won the $37,500 Minnesota Stallion Breeders’ Quarter Horse Futurity Sunday at Canterbury Park. The 2-year-old filly is trained by Canterbury Hall of Fame trainer Edward Ross Hardy, owned by Bob Hardy, and was ridden by David Pinon. She paid $26.00 to win. “We’ve always liked the filly. She’s shown a lot of […]
2013 Festival Records & Repeats
The Festival of Champions has always been, from Day One, one of the best days of the race meet in Shakopee. Crowds, enthusiasm and competitive races are the order of the occasion. The Festival annually is one of the grandest days of the summer, including Sunday’s rendition that drew a crowd of 15,023 and record-setting off-track […]
Feel Good Story Caps Weekend
Feel good stories abound at any racetrack. Stories about horses winning with limited vision, maybe a single working eye. Stories about horses rebounding from near-death experiences with winning efforts, horses with names dedicated to a dying patron or trainer coming through in his memory. But how about this one: A husband-wife training team partnering up […]
Brooks Fields Stakes on Tap
When you walk into Churchill Downs the history of its most famous race is displayed along the upper reaches of the grandstand outside the paddock, one Kentucky Derby winner after another, starting with Aristides in 1875. Thoroughbred racing is empty without its history, without the stories of its great horses, sires and broodmares, jockeys, trainers […]
Canterbury Qs Invade Iowa
Prairie Meadows hosts a huge day of racing this Saturday with qualifying races for the Bank of America Challenge Championships. The finals for the event will be held this year for the first time at Prairie Meadows on October 27. This racing series is the quarter horse equivalent of the Breeders’ Cup with the best […]
New Attendance Record Set and Handle Up 25%
Just like that it was over. A horse named Vini Vidi Vinci won the 11th race on Monday, bringing the 2012 live racing season to a close. The name is a corruption of that note of humility in Latin from Julius Cesar, who proclaimed that “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Vini, Vidi Vinci did, […]
Record Crowd of 17,053 Enjoys 2012 Festival
The Festival of Champions began 20 years ago as a rebuke to track management at the time, as a demonstration by horsemen that the Ladbroke Corp.’s marketing strategies and ideas about live racing were wrong. They’ve been proving that nearly every year of live racing since, often most notably on Festival day, but never quite […]
Previewing the Festival Quarters
The end of the meet is upon us, but 2012 will go out in style with the Minnesota Festival of Champions this weekend! Two of the restricted Minnesota-bred stakes races will feature quarter horses: the 18th running of both the Minnesota Quarter Horse Derby and Minnesota Quarter Horse Futurity. Sunday, September 2nd: Minnesota Quarter Horse […]
Goodwin Makes the Right Call
Nik Goodwin (pictured on Huckleberry Mojito) was making the rounds of the barns with his agent, Jesse Lomelli, a week or so before the meet got under way in May. They were trying to scare up business, but that immediate business was interrupted by a phone call. The Ed Ross Hardy barn was on the line […]
