Canterbury Connections – October 18-19
Friday, October 18: Canterbury Connections Hawthorne – Race 8 – Princess Dinah – We only saw one race out of this filly in Minnesota, but her first career start was a doozy for Clay Brinson. She beat a highly-regarded (and heavily bet) Mac Robertson firster named Where’s Alayna after breaking slowly from her rail draw. […]
2013 Champions Determined
The skies were forbidding and dark much of the day, but the finish was one of the most colorful in Canterbury Park history as the 2013 race meet came to a stirring conclusion. The weather was really not a factor until light rain began falling midway through the card. It was somewhat heavier by the […]
Moe Man Takes Bullit
Quite appropriate. Very fitting. The trainer of a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner saddles the winning horse in a $35,000 overnight stake named for John Bullit, Canterbury Downs champion claimer in 1986, a horse ridden by Mike Smith, Julie Krone, Chris Antley, Scott Stevens and Dean Kutz among others. Ian Wilkes, who conditioned 2012 Classic winner Fort […]
Sunday Saratoga Connections
Most of the attention Sunday in the $20,000-added Cash Caravan Stakes was on defending champion Streak N Hot, Bob Morehouse winner Western Fun and a well-rested Naketa, making her first start in 13 months. That’s the fun of a 440-yard quarter horse dash, as Explosive Guns demonstrated with an explosive burst under Jorge Torres, enabling […]
Badge of Glory Captures Rare Triple, Lil’ Apollo Wins Derby
There was an answer to the most asked question among the daily players, breeders, owners, trainers and anyone else with an interest in the race. YES. EASILY. The question, of course, concerned Badge of Glory, the most accomplished horse in the $75,000 Minnesota Oaks on Saturday. Could she stretch her talent to a mile and […]
Oaks & Derby on Tap
No other horse has raced this many times, won this many races or earned this much money. So, why is there any doubt whatsoever that Badge of Glory (pictured above left) will join an elite club by winning today’s $75,000 Minnesota Oaks? Simple. She has never run this far. Everything she has won has been […]
Birthdays All Around
Handicapping requires various degrees of insight and not much at all in certain situations. Take a couple of races on Thursday night, for example. Race No. 4 was a gimme. Scrap the PPs, ditch the workouts and eliminate everything else you knew about the race. Derek Bell, celebrating his birthday, was on the No. 10 […]
Mystic Lake Derby Day Nears
Go ahead and pick up the champagne, dig out the attire you wore last year for the race, careful to assure everything is the same, not a single accoutrement out-of-place, cross your fingers and don’t say anything that might be construed as a jinx. “My dad’s superstitious,” said Lori Keith. “It will have to be […]
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 […]
It’s a Family Tradition
Despite an unceremonious unseating in the pasture at age 12, Mark Anderson was probably destined to wind up in some end of the horse business at some time in his life. Family history would seem to dictate as much. His brother, Chad, Mark’s senior by four years, was a jockey. Their father, Wayne, rode horses […]
