Large Fields, Low Takeout Wagers Greet Horseplayers For Tuesday’s Canterbury Park Opening

Canterbury Park's 65-day Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse race meet, which begins Tuesday, May 18, attracted 248 entries in 27 races, not including 12 also-eligible entries, for the first three days of the season. With nine Thoroughbred races each on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the Shakopee, Minn., track, field size averages 9.2 horses per race.

Exceptional participation by trainers can be attributed to a population of more than 1,100 Thoroughbreds and a $1,000 bonus, paid directly to the owner of each starter. The horse population is expected to increase over the coming weeks while the bonus extends to all open overnight races during the month of May.

“I have a feeling this is going to be a great meet,” racing secretary Rob Junk said. “We have a lot of trainers returning, and some new stables as well. I expect they came to race.” Mac Robertson, leading trainer in 13 previous Canterbury Park meets, has entered 19 horses opening week. Canterbury mainstays Mike Biehler, Tony Rengstorf, Troy Bethke and Bernell Rhone have a strong presence as has been the case for more than 25 seasons. Robertino Diodoro, who last year had fewer horses than past meets, this summer intends to fill more than 50 stalls. Joel Berndt, 2020 leading trainer, also will have a full barn in Shakopee this summer.

Trainer Justin Evans, unseen at the Shakopee, Minn. racetrack since 2008, returned with 25 horses. Dick Cappellucci and Bennie Woolley, Jr., winner of the 2009 Kentucky Derby with Mine That Bird, have stables at Canterbury for the first time.

Track officials announced in April that a $.50 Pick 5 wager with an industry-low 10 percent takeout would return to the 2021 the wagering menu. The industry-low takeout rate was introduced last year and the success of that wager led officials to introduce a traditional $1 Pick 6 also with an industry low 10 percent takeout.

In 2020, the Pick 5 averaged $79,500 in wagering handle per pool and totaled more than $4.1 million throughout the season. Both were substantial increases over 2019 when the wager attracted an average Jackpot Pick 5 Pool of $8,366 and season-total wagering of slightly more than $550,000.

Canterbury Park all-sources handle in 2020 amounted to $68.4 million, easily setting a Canterbury Park record by more than $20 million in total handle and an increase of 68 percent over the prior year, all while conducting 12 fewer days of racing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, average daily handle increased in 2020 by a staggering 110 percent when compared to the 2019 meet.

Twenty-one jockeys were listed on the overnight for May 18 not including last season's leading rider Ry Eikleberry who will serve a three-day suspension stemming from a riding foul occurring at the end of the 2020 season. Several accomplished riders have joined the colony including journeymen Lindey Wade, Ty Kennedy and multiple graded stakes winning rider Ruben Fuentes who most recently rode at Santa Anita.

Racing will be conducted Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 5 p.m. CT and select holidays and Sundays at 1  p.m. CT through Sept. 16. More information is available at canterburypark.com.

The post Large Fields, Low Takeout Wagers Greet Horseplayers For Tuesday’s Canterbury Park Opening appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Think Dad Would Be Proud’

Before entering the Oaklawn winner's circle on March 13, jockey Alex Canchari raised his gaze to the clouds and allowed himself a moment to experience the rolling waves of emotion. He raised his right hand in a salute, acknowledging the man from whom he'd inherited his love of the horses.

When Alex closed his eyes, he felt it: his dad was proud of him.

The 27-year old had just piloted Carlos L. to a $97.40 upset of the $150,000 Temperence Hill, his first stakes win since the death of his father, Luis Canchari, on Dec. 9, 2020. 

“My dad always loved Oaklawn,” Alex said. “I just felt like he was riding with me. He was watching over me.”

It wasn't just his father's passing that was affecting Alex on the way to the winner's circle; it had been a long, arduous 12 months for the entire Canchari family. 

In March of 2020, Alex's older brother, jockey Patrick Canchari, was gravely injured in a car wreck on the way to the racetrack in Arizona. He was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and a fractured C4 vertebra (neck), sedated and placed on a ventilator. 

Due to COVID restrictions placing hospitals on lockdown, family members were unable to see and support Patrick in person.

“That's why it was really tough, and it just seemed like the doctors didn't give him much of a chance when the accident happened,” Alex recalled. “He's a strong person, too.”

Patrick overcame all the odds, and enjoyed his 30th birthday at home in Minnesota last week. He lives with sister Ashley Canchari, who renovated her house for wheelchair access, cares for Patrick, and takes him to daily therapy sessions.

“He's in good spirits,” Alex said. “He was really well-liked in our town. There are people there that come every day and help him; he needs help doing everything. But he's doing really well now.”

Patrick Canchari celebrates his 30th birthday

Alex stayed close to home that summer, supporting his family as best he could through the restrictions imposed by the virus, all while riding at both Canterbury and Prairie Meadows.

It was late fall when an unknown respiratory illness sent the family patriarch to the hospital. It wasn't COVID, but doctors were unable to diagnose him and Luis Canchari succumbed on Dec. 9. He was 64 years old. 

“He was kind of like a jack of all trades,” Alex said of his father. “He's been everything from an agent to a trainer, and he was a jockey. He could do everything with horses; that's what I always admired about him.”

Alex and his father had always been close. Luis grew up in Lima, Peru, attending races at the Monterrico oval and, when he was old enough, grooming and galloping horses there.

In fact, Luis Canchari was the groom/exercise rider for the legendary Peruvian horse Santorin, the first ever winner of the country's “Quadruple Crown.” Santorin won at distances from seven furlongs to nearly two miles, tallying eight victories from 13 career starts. Perhaps his biggest triumph came in the 1973 Group 1 Carlos Pellegrini Grand Prix in Argentina, which the horse dominated by 13 lengths.

Today, there is a statue of Santorin in front of Monterrico. 

“I still have that picture of my dad walking the horse into the winner's circle,” Alex said, pride evident in his voice. “The grooms would gallop horses without saddles there. He was amazing.”

Luis Canchari moved to the United States in the mid-1980s, working and riding races in Florida for a few years. However, it was a trip to Minnesota's Canterbury Park that altered the man's life forever.

“My mom was on the rail watching the horses, but when he passed her she had her head down, and he thought she was crying,” Alex said. “He asked her if she was okay, and that's how they met.”

Luis and his wife settled down and raised four children in Minnesota, working with the horses at Canterbury Park every summer.

There must be something in the air at Canterbury, because Alex met and fell in love with his fiancée there as well.

“I had broken my hand, and I was at the races with my friends,” Alex explained. “She bumped into me and she got ice cream on my shirt, and we just started talking.”

Looking back on his childhood, Alex can't remember a time when both the racetrack and his family weren't a major part of his life. He spent endless hours at the track with his father and his brothers, learning horses from the ground up. 

His father wasn't the kind of man who taught by way of instruction; no, Luis' children learned by doing.

“I remember when I was 10 years old, I was cleaning stalls for a Quarter Horse trainer in Minnesota,” Alex said. “Part of my pay was that she would let me ride the pony. One day, my pony freaked out for some reason and took off full speed across the blacktop. I couldn't slow him down. There is a chain link fence surrounding the track up there, and he was heading straight for it. Well, he hit the brakes, and I flew right over the top of his neck into the fence.

“I thought, 'I don't want to get back on him.' My dad, he was wearing a dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes, and he came over and got on the pony and started galloping him around in figure eights with one finger on the reins.

“That was the only time I can remember being scared around horses, but seeing my dad do that, it took away all the fear. He said, 'It's easy Alex, you just gotta enjoy it.'”

When Alex committed to a career as a jockey in his early teens, his father was right alongside him.

“I used to run around all of Shakopee,” Alex said, referring to the town in Minnesota in which Canterbury Park is located. “Dad would follow me in the car, while I was running with the sauna suit and carrying a whip, practicing switching hands and stuff. Dad built me an equicizer at our house, and he would come out and coach me on it.”

Understandably, Alex felt bereft after Luis's death in early December. 

Alex stayed home for the birth of his daughter, Penelope, on Dec. 21, then made his way to Turfway Park in Kentucky. Things weren't quite clicking: he went 3 for 59 over the next two months.

A fellow Canterbury regular, trainer Mac Robertson, called to check in on Alex. When he heard how the rider was doing, Robertson offered him the chance to ride for his barn at Oaklawn. Alex jumped at the opportunity.

Alex piloted Robertson's Glacken's Ghost to an allowance victory in his first Oaklawn mount of the meet on Feb. 26, and the momentum has continued to build. There was the win with Carlos L. on March 13, and the very next weekend Alex brought home another stakes winner for Robertson with Sir Wellington in the Gazebo, paying $15.40.

Alex Canchari, wearing a helmet cover embroidered with his brother's name, gives Sir Wellington a pat after their win in the Gazebo Stakes on March 20

Carlos L.'s stakes win was extra special, however, because the horse is owned by former jockey Rene Douglas, who suffered a career-ending injury in 2009 at Arlington Park. Douglas is one of Alex's childhood idols, so the mount was especially important to him.

Even at the eighth pole, when Alex's whip flew out of his hand after connecting with that of a nearby rival, the jockey refused to give up. He urged Carlos L. onward with his hands and his heels, giving the horse everything he had. 

The pair crossed the wire a neck in front, and Alex saluted the heavens after the wire.

Things are definitely looking up, and Alex is excited to spend the summer at home in Minnesota where he can ride at Canterbury and help take care of his brother, as well as spending time “being a dad” to his own two kids. 

“Everybody has tough times,” Alex summarized. “I pray a lot, and work every day, and try to look for the good side of things, like my brother walking again some day.

“I think Dad would be proud.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Think Dad Would Be Proud’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Temperence Hill Win By Carlos L. Gives Canchari Needed Emotional Lift

Not only was the $150,000 Temperence Hill Stakes for older horses March 13 at Oaklawn in Hot Springs, Ark., the most lucrative victory for jockey Alex Canchari, it may have been the most emotional of his 10-year riding career.

Canchari raised his right arm and acknowledged the grandstand crowd after long shot Carlos L., who is trained by one of the jockey's biggest supporters, Mac Robertson, flashed across the finish line to capture the Temperence Hill in a track-record 2:29.87 for 1 ½ miles.

Winning a marathon race was fitting because of Canchari's on-going long stretch of personal pain. Canchari's older Patrick, also a jockey, was severely injured in an automobile accident last March. Then late last year, their father, Luis, died.

“It was such a high when the rest of the year has been so low,” Alex Canchari said Thursday morning in Robertson's Oaklawn office. “My dad always loved Oaklawn. He always wanted to see me did good. I just felt like he was riding with me. He was watching over me.”

Luis Canchari rode and trained after emigrating from Peru and became a fixture at Canterbury Park in suburban Minneapolis, where Alex and Patrick were raised. Alex Canchari said his father became seriously ill last year and was hospitalized with what doctors believed was a respiratory-related condition. Luis Canchari, 64, died Dec. 9.

“They said it wasn't COVID, but he was hooked up to a ventilator,” Alex Canchari said. “It was an enigma, basically, a medical enigma. At first, they thought it was bad pneumonia. They treated it like that and it kept getting worse.”

Following the death of his father, Canchari, 27, resumed riding Dec. 26 at Turfway Park and was 3 for 59 at the northern Kentucky venue when he decided in February to rekindle his business relationship with Robertson, who annually winters at Oaklawn.

“I was looking for somebody and he was available,” Robertson said. “A lot of these guys, they just ride riders who they trust. I can trust Alex.”

Canchari recorded his first career stakes victory aboard the Robertson-trained Devil and a Half in the $60,000 Arkansas Breeders' April 7, 2013, at Oaklawn. Canchari and Robertson also won two stakes races at the 2019 Oaklawn meeting ($100,000 American Beauty and $100,000 Spring Fever) with the recently retired Amy's Challenge.

Glacken's Ghost, a hard-hitting Arkansas-bred, represented Canchari's first mount in his Feb. 26 return to Oaklawn. Like old times, Canchari and Robertson immediately teamed for another winner at Oaklawn, this one a little more than a month after the meet opened. They also captured the $100,000 Arkansas Breeders' Stakes with Glacken's Ghost in 2018 at Oaklawn. 

“Staying here for good,” said Canchari, Oaklawn's leading apprentice jockey in 2012 and co-third-leading rider in 2017. “Mac called me. He's helping me out a lot.”

Canchari rode Carlos L. for the first time in the Temperence Hill, which honors the 1980 Eclipse Award winner (3-year-old male) and multiple Oaklawn stakes winner. Carlos L. was a standout in Panama, but had just one United States victory, that coming in a Dec. 12 allowance sprint at Hawthorne, before the Temperence Hill. In his local debut, Carlos L. finished a tiring seventh in a Feb. 4 allowance race at a mile.

“I had a lot of confidence in him,” Canchari said. “He was training really good. Mac told me that Rene Douglas, who was one of my childhood idols, owns this horse. So, I just wanted to impress him, too, and do a good job for him.”

Douglas, a Panama native, was a highly successful jockey in the United States before a career-ending riding accident in 2009 at Arlington Park.

Carlos L. ($97.40) led at every point of call in the Temperence Hill, opening a four-length advantage after a half-mile and repulsing a challenge from eventual runner-up Lone Rock on the outside through the stretch. Canchari lost his whip with about a furlong remaining when he said it inadvertently struck the whip of jockey David Cohen, who was riding Lone Rock. Canchari was hitting right-handed, Cohen left-handed.

“It was crazy,” Canchari said. “It was just weird timing because when I was coming up, Cohen was coming down and our whips just collided and it went flying out of my hand. I just went to Plan B – win by any means. My animal instinct kicked in and I ended up having to use my hands the rest of the way.”

Carlos L. finished a neck ahead of Lone Rock and shattered the previous track record (2:31.60), set March 30, 1957, by Dapper in the meet's final race, which was for older $2,000 claimers. The Temperence Hill, inaugurated in 2020, marked Canchari's 164th victory for Robertson and 15th in a stakes race.

“He's always tried hard for me,” Robertson said. “I never have a problem riding Alex. I think he rides all horses hard.”

Canchari rode his first race Dec. 26, 2011, at Hawthorne. According to Equibase, racing's official data gathering organization, Canchari entered Saturday with 930 career victories, including 194 at Oaklawn, with his mounts collecting $24,846,153 in purse money. Canchari's only career graded stakes victory to date came in the $122,200 Iowa Oaks (G3) July 5 at Prairie Meadows with the recently retired Flat Out Speed. Canchari's most lucrative to date came on the heels of his father's death and the birth of the jockey's second child, a daughter, Penelope, Dec. 21.

“That was the light at the end of the tunnel, Penelope,” Canchari said.

Canchari, who doesn't have an agent, said he plans to ride at Prairie Meadows and Canterbury Park after the Oaklawn meeting ends May 1.

The post Temperence Hill Win By Carlos L. Gives Canchari Needed Emotional Lift appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Oaklawn’s Opening Day Smarty Jones Stakes Kicks Off Arkansas Road To The Kentucky Derby

More than a decade after winning the final major local Arkansas Derby prep, trainer Mac Robertson will try to capture the first when he sends out Martini Blu, a sharp winner of his only career start, in the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes for 3-year-olds Jan. 22 at Oaklawn in Hot Springs, Ark.

The one-mile Smarty Jones is Oaklawn's first of four Kentucky Derby points races and highlights the opening-day nine race program. Probable post time for the Smarty Jones, which goes as the eighth race, is 4:11 p.m. (Central). It is the first of 33 scheduled stakes races during the 57-day meeting that ends May 1.

The Smarty Jones will offer 17 points (10-4-2-1) to the top four finishers, respectively, toward starting eligibility for the Kentucky Derby. Oaklawn's Kentucky Derby points series continues with the $750,000 Southwest Stakes (G3) Feb. 15, $1-million Rebel Stakes (G2) March 13 and the $1-million Arkansas Derby (G1) April 10.

Post positions for the Smarty Jones were drawn Friday, with Martini Blu among the seven horses entered. Robertson sprang an upset in the 2009 Rebel with late-running Win Willy (56-1) and Martini Blu will represent the trainer's second Smarty Jones starter after Stormy Holiday finished fourth in 2013.

Martini Blu, a son of Maclean's Music, already owns a victory around two turns after winning his Dec. 27 career debut at Hawthorne by 5 ¼ lengths when under the care of Robertson's father, trainer Hugh Robertson. Martini Blu, who stalked the leader, covered a mile and 70 yards in 1:42.70 over a fast track to earn a Beyer Speed Figure of 64.

“He was kind of a speed-crazy horse this summer and I didn't want to run him,” Mac Robertson said. “He was showing too much speed, just go to the front. Sometimes it takes longer than you would like for them to tone down a little, even their first time. Once you run them, it's hard to slow them down. But he rated some the first time, passed horses and probably got something out of the race.”

Robertson said Martini Blu was green-lighted for the Smarty Jones after working a half-mile in :49.80 over a fast track Thursday morning at Oaklawn. He had previously been breezing at Hawthorne.

“He worked good over this surface, and it's not like there's a two-turn race any time soon,” Robertson said. “It just made practical sense.”

A $40,000 Keeneland September Yearling Sale purchase in 2019, Martini Blu is owned by Robertson's longtime client, Novogratz Racing Stables Inc. (Joseph Novogratz). Robertson and Novogratz also campaign multiple stakes winner Amy's Challenge, who is scheduled to make her 2021 debut in the $150,000 American Beauty Stakes for older female sprinters Jan. 30 at Oaklawn.

The projected Smarty Jones field from the rail out: Martini Blu, Francisco Arrieta to ride, 115 pounds; Lawlessness, David Cohen, 115; Cowan, Ricardo Santana Jr., 115; Big Thorn, David Cabrera, 117; Hardly Swayed, Martin Garcia, 115; Moonlite Strike, Joe Talamo, 115; and Caddo River, Florent Geroux, 115.

Cowan and Big Thorn are trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, who won the 2020 Smarty Jones with Gold Street. Cowan finished a fast-closing second in the $1-million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G2) Nov. 6 at Keeneland and completed his 2-year-old campaign with a runner-up finish in the $200,000 Springboard Mile Dec. 18 at Remington Park.

Caddo River exits a powerful front-running maiden special weights victory Nov. 15 at Churchill Downs for trainer Brad Cox and breeder/owner John Ed Anthony of Hot Springs.

The post Oaklawn’s Opening Day Smarty Jones Stakes Kicks Off Arkansas Road To The Kentucky Derby appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights