SHAKOPEE, MN – The Canterbury Park jockey colony is going to look a bit different after this week’s races as several key defections will generate opportunity for riders staying in Shakopee.

With the lockdown of jockeys at Prairie Meadows, Leandro Goncalves and Alex Canchari chose to remain in Iowa for the remainder of the meet.

Heading to Chicago will be Jareth Loveberry, Julio Felix and Constantino Roman, all with mounts on Thursday at Arlington.

With any return to Canterbury there would be a 14-day quarantine followed by a negative COVID-19 test to ride thoroughbreds, while visiting quarter horse jockeys would be able to come in and ride on the quarter horse days as those jocks stay self contained, but would need to test negative the day of racing in order to ride. This all but negates a chance that any of these riders will be back to ride before the end of the meet.

There will be some key additions to the colony as well. Nik Goodwin, the leading quarter horse ride in Canterbury history, will begin riding quarter horses on the 28th and presumably thoroughbreds when his quarantine time is over. Betty Jo Williams will also be booking rides when her quarantine time expires. The former Sovereign Award finalist for top apprentice has been working in Ocala with Goodwin and will be poised to make an impact here.

Evan Herman, who last rode at Fonner, started riding this week and will also have some quarter horse mounts. Jake Olesiak, just finishing up riding at Fargo, will start riding quarter horses on July 28th.

In an encouraging sign for the remainder of the quarter horse meet, twelve races were filled for the July 28th card including trials for the $150,000+ Mystic Lake Northlands Futurity and the Canterbury Park Quarter Horse Derby. It is expected that the remainder of the quarter horse meet will finish as scheduled.