A Very Gray Kinda (Month) Day
The fourth race on Saturday’s card summed up the afternoon and most of the meet this spring/summer/fall at the same time. Very, very gray. The race drew an 11-horse field that included four grays. Four grays in one race? When is the last time you’ve seen that? Racing operations analyst and tote board messiah Andrew Offerman […]
PA’s Big Day
There is something eerily suggestive about a man being fired out of a cannon on Memorial Day, but that is the featured act of Monday’s sideline activities. All in all, the idea is not any stranger than other events that have unfolded over the weekend. On Saturday’s card, for example, track announcer Paul Allen, who began […]
Opening Night Elicits Excitement
The planets are back in the proper orbits, circling the heavens in their celestial splendor. The stock market will take off like a rocket in the coming days. Peace has come to this little corner of the world. Just like that, horse racing is back on the Minnesota sports and entertainment calendar. Under gray, wet, […]
Road to Kentucky, Angela at Hawthorne & More
The $30,000 Road to Kentucky Tournament continues Saturday at Golden Gate Fields. The double point bonus race Derby prep is the $200,000 G3 El Camino Real. Post time is 2:45pm for the nine-race card and entries to this free contest are due before that. Only three of the nine entered in the El Camino Real […]
If the Vikings Were a Racehorse
We made the playoffs! Paul Allen does his Vikings Derby each week on KFAN but let’s get a jump on that this week. If this was a match race, and the Vikings were our steed, the plan would go a little like this… 1. Let the star carry the barn – How many times have […]
Geovanni Franco – The Godfather
The grin stretches ear to ear whenever he hears the music, in response to the recognition but maybe too because it’s a reminder he’s just ridden another winner. Each time he enters the winner’s circle, track announcer Paul Allen starts the background music from the movie, the Godfather. The music has played a total of 15 […]
July 3rd Racing Preview
The five-day Independence Day racing week kicks off on Tuesday, July 3rd with a special 4PM Post Time. The day features some great racing including one quarter horse race (the Great Lakes Stakes) followed by 10 thoroughbred races (including the Blair’s Cove Stakes and the HBPA Mile Stakes). Two Pick 4s carrying a $.50 minimum […]
Remembering Dark Star
On the morning before the 144th running of the Belmont Stakes, the racing community at Canterbury Park said goodbye and paid its respects to a man who would not only have been present but at his boisterous best if fate had not intervened. There was after all the disappointing defection of a horse pointed toward […]
Kansas Tornado Wedding & Other Notes
Trainer Jerry Livingston has been known to stir things up on occasion, but he was a mere witness to this dust-up. Livingston watched the Preakness Stakes at his home in Anthony, Kan., jumped in the shower and then headed down the road to his sister Carla Pence’s place in Harper, a few miles away. His nephew […]
