SHAKOPEE, MN – Father’s Day brings the first $100,000 stakes of the season to Canterbury Park. A pair of mile turf stakes will highlight the thoroughbred card on Sunday, the Lady Canterbury and the Mystic Lake Mile, while the day will kick off with Skip Zimmerman Stakes for Quarter Horses.
In the $20,000 Skip Zimmerman Stakes, the 9/5 morning line favorite is The Fiscal Cliff shipping in for trainer Kasey Willis. The four year old multiple stakes winner has amassed over $350,000 in earnings and has wins 10 if 17 career starts. Stakes winners Streakin Pr and Eagles Span will try and stop the heavy favorite in the 350 yard test.
The Lady Canterbury, long the highlight of the Canterbury season prior to the advent of the Mystic Lake Derby, is scheduled for race 7.
Mike Maker’s Gianna’s Dream, the 3-1 morning line favorite, is making her 2017 debut in the Lady Canterbury. Claimed for $25,000 in August from a race at Saratoga, Gianna’s Dream has won three of five since joining the Maker barn including a pair of Oklahoma bred stakes while placing in a pair of open stakes. The four year old is quick out of the gate and while she might not try to wire to wire, but count on her being prominent early.
Second choice Insta Erma’s best races have come from near the front end but is coming in off a stalking 2nd place in a $90,000 Belmont allowance. Though she’s been steady, the Bill Mott trainee has tended to falter when stepping up into stakes company.
Local trainer Mac Robertson has had a proclivity of ruining the dreams of horses shipping in looking for an easy score. Robertson will try and do that again with Princess Erindelle, last year’s Northbound Pride Oaks runner up. She’ll have a tall task ahead of her having only managed 1 win in her last six starts in a Fairgrounds $40,000 optional claimer in the mud but prepped for this with a strong second in a $62,500 optional at Arlington.
Graded stakes placed Sweet Tapper from the Ian Wilkes barn will try to close into the pace as well with local speedster Hey Didjanotis looks to be a part of that pace. Last year’s Northbound Pride Oaks champion Inconclusive will look to be running late as will Prairie Meadows shipper Cleverness.
The 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Hootenanny will highlight the Mystic Lake Mile. The five year old horse is heading into his second race after a layoff, finishing 4th in the Grade 3 Hanshin over the artificial at Arlington. Trainer Wesley Ward drilled him five furlongs in 1:00 3/5 to earn the bullet at Keeneland and followed that up with a steady maintenance breeze before shipping to Canterbury.
Last year’s Mystic Lake Derby champ, graded stakes placed One Mean Man, doesn’t have the record he did at three but has been up against some of the best turf horses in training this year having faced World Approval, Granny’s Kitten and Enterprising this year.
Crewman, winner of the Grade 3 Hanshin last out, will try to get his first win on the turf in the Mile while Hay Dakota will try and prove that his 29-1 score in the Grade 3 Commonwealth stakes was no fluke. He too has been freshened and will try and fire in his second off the layoff after falling to today’s rival Patriots Rule in a $35,000 optional here last out.
Mac Robertson sends out Majestic Pride in the Mile. Another coming out of that same optional claiming race as Hay Dakota and Patriots Rule (finishing 2nd) after closing out the 2016 season with local stakes win in the John Bullit and the Brooks Fields.
Sunday’s first post, the Skip Zimmerman, is 12:55.
