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 […]
Race of the Week: MN Distaff Sprint
The Minnesota State Tournament of horse racing arrives this weekend each year, and after a summer that’s flown bye here we are. This day is not typically one to cash for obscene amounts of money but one to be enjoyed with the pride that Minnesota breeding is alive and well and will improve over the […]
Festival Roots Run Deep
Many of the same people have been part of this from the start and still celebrate this annual toast to the Minnesota thoroughbred and quarter horse, an idea spawned when international corporate interests were intent on changing the shape of horse racing in Minnesota. The Minnesota Festival of Champions is an afternoon devoted exclusively to […]
2013 Derby Day Nears
Occasionally she’ll think about the race and the biggest win of her career, the stuff of warm feelings and pleasant thoughts, except for that interminable wait. “It was intense, wasn’t it though,” says Lori Keith. The subject at hand, of course, is the inaugural Mystic Lake Derby first held in 2012 and Keith’s controversial win […]
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 […]
Festival of Champions 2012: Sunny Days Ahead
It’s been twenty years since an unforgettable dark cloud hung over Canterbury Downs, a black funnel positioned to wipe out an entire industry and its primary place of business as well. Despite the hovering threat and very long odds of survival, horsemen saw a ray of hope. Nearly everyone expected a shutdown of this still […]
‘Ice’ and ‘Eddie’ Headline Festival of Champions Day
The Festival of Champions, which began in 1992, is a day of racing restricted to horses bred in Minnesota. Keewatin Ice, owned by Camelia Casby of Shakopee, MN, is entered in the $50,000 Minnesota Distaff Classic Championship. The 1 1/16 mile race drew a field of seven. Keewatin Ice (pictured above) has won four of […]