Canterbury Park is making a concerted effort to appeal to horseplayers during its 51-date meet that opens Saturday night in Shakopee, Minn, and runs through Sept. 20.
The track is focused on increasing field and pool sizes, and it will again offer both a strong dose of turf racing and a reduced takeout on its pick five wager.
“I think what’s kind of become our calling card is the 10 percent takeout pick five,” said Jeff Maday, spokesman for Canterbury. “We’re going to offer that and we’ve moved it to start in race 2 every race day.
“It’s the lowest takeout in the country, so it’s become popular. I think it gets people interested in our racing and maybe they look at playing the other races, as well. That’s been a success for us. I think it helps in a world where there’s so much horse racing – you need something that helps you stand out and I think that does that for us.”
Canterbury first introduced a reduced takeout on the 50-cent bet in 2020. Turf racing also will be a priority this meet, and there are three grass races on the eight-race opener.
“Last year, we did average three turf races a day and we plan to do that again,” said Maday. “The first three days of [entries] are really good. I think we’re going to be able to offer a fairly large field size. We were up almost a horse a race last year and handle corresponded with that.
“Our total handle was up by 12 or 13 percent, so we’re hoping that trainers did come to run. We’re offering them a wide range of races – and running on the turf at levels a lot of tracks don’t.”
Maday said the field size for opening weekend, which includes a holiday card Monday, averages 8.46 horses a race. Last season, the average over the course of the meet was 7.36, which was up over 2023, according to Maday.
He said purses this meet are projected to average $175,000 a card, which covers races for both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses.
Mac Robertson, who has won 16 training titles at Canterbury, is back for the meet. Some of the new trainers on hand include Rafael Barraza, Nik Goodwin, and Isaiah Ortiz. Jockey Harry Hernandez, a local title winner in 2022 and 2023, is back after a one-year absence and is again being represented by retired jockey Scott Stevens.
There are four major stakes days – June 21, July 12, Aug. 9, and Sept. 6 – and ontrack patrons can again expect lots of entertainment between races. Last season, average daily attendance was 4,802.
“We’ve always had a focus on recruiting new fans,” said Maday. “I remember when we first opened. We didn’t have generations of race fans and we wanted to create that, and that’s why we added a playground, and why we do the petting zoo – to try to get people out. And I do see people here now that I knew when they were just children. Now they’re here bringing their children, so it has worked to try to create that generational race fan.
“We try to make it fun. We do crazy things between races. This Sunday, we’ll have the bulldog races.”
But for those partial to horse races, there will be much on offer this season at Canterbury.
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