SHAKOPEE, MN – Four new members were inducted into the Canterbury Park Hall of Fame Saturday night. The ceremony took place in the newly renovated Triple Crown Club on the third level of Canterbury Park.

Canterbury Media Relations Director Jeff Maday started off the evening by remembering the late Hall of Famer Camelia Casby who passed away during the off season.

“Cam was always prominent on Festival Day,” said Maday. “Jim Wells wrote a great piece on our blog this summer about Cam and how you want to say that she’s looking down watching the races tomorrow but that she never did! She’ll probably be facing that great grandstand in the sky listening to Paul Allen’s race call. But she will be with us tomorrow and we will miss her.”

A video overview of the Class of 2015 introduced the new members to the gathering of invited guests: veterinarian Dr. Richard Bowman, jockey Tad Leggett, gelding Wally’s Choice and Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter Rachel Blount.

The first honoree was Dr. Bowman. Inducting Dr. Bowman was chief state veterinarian Dr. Lyn Hovda.

“You may know him as Dr. Bowman, Doc or Dick, but we know him as Bowman. As in ‘Where the heck is Bowman now’”, Hovda laughed. “He is so kind, he’s so unassuming, he’s so willing to talk with anybody about their problems and take care of a horse that needs help that we sometimes lose him on the backside. He has been a friend for over 25 years, a co-worker, a colleague, a mentor and a definite positive in my life.”

After listing an impressive series of national awards Bowman has received, Hovda continued.

“His activities at Canterbury Park are too numerous for me to mention all of them. You’ve already heard about the rescue that Dr. Bowman runs and the well over 600 horses that hold memories for us.   We can sit in our office and say ‘Do you remember, do you remember, do you remember,’ and he remembers them all.”

“Still,” she continued, “there is more to Dr. Bowman than all that. For every injured jockey, every injured trainer, every groom fundraiser on the backside, he is the first to step up to the plate and put money in the pot. And it’s not a dollar or two, I’ve seen him slip a few hundred dollars into everyone’s pot. For every benefit at Canterbury Park he’s bought something. He’s even donated his famous Bowman Baked Beans – they are legendary.”

“I promised I wouldn’t say anything too embarrassing,” she finished. “But he promised he would say more than two words.”

When Bowman took the stage he told Hovda, “I am going to say two words – ‘thank you’ – but to a lot of people.”

He thanked track president Randy Sampson for bringing him up from Iowa and his immediate family – all 27 members – that came up to support him.

“Thank you to the [racing] commission and, I don’t know what else there is to say.”

“The beans!” was heard from the crowd – rumor is it was track announcer Paul Allen.

“We can talk about the beans,” Bowman beamed. “We had a very social group in vet school and we would put on parties for the vet school, butcher pigs and cook them over an open fire. ‘Bowman,’ someone said, ‘you’re in charge’. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I started pouring various items in there and people were saying ‘oh no, don’t put that in there’, but I put in what I thought was right and at the end of the night there was not one bean left in that 80 gallon scalding kettle. The cafeteria got the recipe and to this day they still serve them at Kansas State. And that’s the story of the beans.”

Striking a serious note, Bowman said, “This is where I’ve spent most of my career and it’s been a privilege and a great ride.”

Trainer Jerry Livingston gave a young Tad Leggett his first job in racing, scrubbing buckets and feed tubs.

“This little guy weighing about 60 pounds come in with a buddy looking for a job. What were they going to do?” said Livingston.

“The biggest mistake we made was having him do the stall bedding,” Livingston continued. “The straw was wire wrapped and the kid kept walking off with all my pliers. I had to buy them by the caseload. Then one day I looked over and there he was up on the race track after racing closed up on a saddle horse with a flat saddle on him.

“What’s he doing up there?” Livingston asked.

“Learning how to gallop,” came the answer.

The first time he planned on race riding, though, his mother got wind of the plan and made sure that young Tad stayed home until he got a little older.

“Tad did get started and turned out to be a great rider. He’s great person and it was a lot of fun watching him grow up.”

Livingston turned the remainder of the induction over to Leggett’s daughter, Tiffany, the horsemen’s bookkeeper at Canterbury Park for what turned out to be the most emotional moments of the evening.

“I have been procrastinating, thinking about what I was going to say for the last two weeks,” Tiffany started. “Last night I stayed late in the office and pulled out the media guide and tried to figure out what in the world I would say. I started writing down all these races he had won, the horses he had won on and reminiscing about all the memories about growing up here at Canterbury Park and I realized I would be up here for an hour rattling off race after race and horse after horse.”

“So I decided against that,” she said. “He has been very privileged to ride some amazing horses and work with some amazing people here at Canterbury. Every racetracker will tell you that not every year is a record year. You don’t always leave with a riding title, you don’t always leave with multiple stakes wins, but we always left with really amazing memories.”

“With that said,” she continued, her voice starting to choke with emotion, “not every year is the picture perfect year. The successful years are a true reflection of all the bad years and all the hard work and dedication that you put in. I have never known anyone else in my whole life who has a work ethic quite like he does.”

Addressing her father, she continued.

“Even the years you didn’t win a title or a stakes race, you got up and you went to work. You did your best and you put in your best effort and when the horses win, that’s a reflection on the work that you did. So I don’t have a fun story or something that will make you laugh, but when we welcome my dad into the Hall of Fame I hope that beyond the records and the races you remember him as a hard worker, someone who was loyal and when those records are all broken and the races are won by new horses that the people will take those places will hold those same standards.”

Tad Leggett, whose riding career ended five years ago after a 2-year old broke down underneath him crushing three vertebrae in his neck and leaving him a quadriplegic, was visibly moved by his daughter’s words.

“I need to thank a lot of people, but first I’d like to thank Jesus, because he saved my life,” Leggett began, unsteady but with conviction. “And then my amazing family because without them, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I had an amazing career,” Leggett steadied. “I wouldn’t change it for anything. Canterbury was one of my favorite places because the track liked family oriented stuff. It was really important with me to have my family with me when I could and I always had a good time here.”

“I got to ride, sixty to seventy percent of the time, the best horse in the race,” he continued. “So if you couldn’t win it was probably your own fault. Me and Ed [Ross Hardy] had a nice run here and he was an amazing man to do business with. And as far as Canterbury, they just treat everyone so nice here – like family.”

Leggett was unaware of most of the marks that he set during his career.

“The records are amazing all that, but I didn’t know everything I had done until all this,” he revealed. “I never kept track of that stuff when I was riding, I just kept track of my checkbook. Every race was special to me because I just wanted to win and I didn’t care how hard I had to work to do it.”

“Everything in life isn’t going to be simple or easy,” Leggett concluded. “But you know what? Everybody knows that. You don’t have to be in a chair to know that. Everybody has their struggles. I just hope and pray that when my records get broke that it’s as meaningful for them as it has been for me. My career was the most amazing thing in my life besides my family and God and it wasn’t a job, it was fun. I loved getting up and doing what I did.”

Track announcer and Hall of Famer Paul Allen introduced Wally’s Choice.

“We have richer glitzy races here at Canterbury now but for those of us that have been around Minnesota racing for as long as we have, Festival day is the signature day here no matter we give away $500,000 or $5. And it’s fitting that Wally’s Choice is being inducted on Festival eve.

“Wally holds the track record for the Classic distance of a mile and 16^th at 1:41.74 set on Festival Day in August of 2004 and is the only Minnesota bred to hold a track record at Canterbury,” continued Allen. “Wally was a two time Festival Day champion and finished his career with $285,835 at Canterbury alone which is third all-time here behind Hall of Famers Crocrock and Sir Tricky. He finished his 59 race career earning $508,125 second among Minnesota breds to Hall of Famer Blairs Cove.”

“Throughout my 21-years at Canterbury,” Allen finished, “I would say that there are a handful of horses that have rolled through here who genuinely are horses where when people saw their name in the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press or wherever it would make them flock to Shakopee: Hoist Her Flag, John Bullit, Crocrock, Heliskier of late – I’m sure I’m leaving some out. Wally’s Choice was one of those horses.”

“Wally’s Choice was a once in a lifetime horse that we happened to be lucky to get,” said co-owner Wally “The Beerman” McNeil. McNeil had a choice between two horses to co-own with Curtis Sampson. McNeil chose the gelding and Wally’s Choice was named.

A reluctant Mike Biehler took the microphone next.

“I just want to thank the Sampsons and Wally for giving me the opportunity to train the horse,” said Biehler. “He’s a great horse. He did everything we asked of him and I still have him out on the farm. He’s still a great horse. He’s great babysitter for any young horse that needs a companion and he’s a great trail riding horse as well.”

Finally, a much less relcutant Russ Sampson spoke on behalf of his father, Curt.

“He had a different running style that was unique,” said Sampson. “He’d drop back and then coming running at the end and that was the way he had to win his races. He ran on the dirt and turf and he ran short and long. He was a versatile horse and for him to come back and win some races after the injury he had and stem cell treatment shows the type of horse he was.”

Jeff Maday returned to the microphone to induct Minneapolis Star-Tribune Reporter Rachel Blount. He began by reading a letter from his predecessor, Sheila Williams.

“The horses and their welfare are very important to her,” Williams wrote. “Just as important is telling the story of a Minnesota family that took on the monstrous task of rebuilding a sport that had failed twice.

“When you read Rachel’s stories what comes through is the love for everyone involved with the horses. She can weave a common day at the races into a tale right out of the Black Stallion series. Her pieces have created new fans, recorded history and elevated horses, jockeys and grooms to into the magical kinds of beings that many of us take for granted after being at the track for years.”

Maday added his own comments as well.

“Rachel,” he said to her. “You make me look good. People think I’m doing things when stories show up in the paper.”

“We have been fortunate,” he continued. “She covers racing objectively and she finds the stories. We know in this day and age racing doesn’t get a lot of coverage. She always fought for racing, fought for Canterbury and wrote stories that have broad interest. Not everyone wants to read about the result of a race but they may want to know a human interest story. She’s brought great stories to people over the years and has helped make racing popular in Minnesota.”

“We’re fortunate to have Rachel,” Maday added. “One of the reasons I think we get coverage is because you’re a great writer. You could cover anything and we’re fortunate that you chose to cover racing.”

“I am so fortunate to be inducted with this group that I have had the privilege of covering over the years,” Blount began. “But what I’m most grateful for is being able to be here on a day to day basis with all of you. To be able to be in this world of yours and tell your stories.”

“When I first got the opportunity to cover horse racing I was a very young reporter in my first job in Atlanta, Georgia,” Blount related. “The Birmingham Turf Club opened up in Birmingham, Alabama and I went straight to my editor and told him, ‘I know all about horse racing and I want to cover that.’”

“’Be my guest,’ he said. ‘No one else on staff is interested’

“When I came to Minnesota in 1990,” she went on, “my first assignment was the North Star’s beat writer and they had a guy covering Canterbury at that time and I was disappointed.”

“When the track went dark, he moved on to other things and when the Schenians and Sampsons reopened the track, you can bet that I was in another sports editor’s office begging to cover horse racing.

“’Sure,’ he said. ‘No on here is interested in it’ and I thought, ‘these people don’t know what they are missing.’

“I bet they have never been to the track; been to the backside; never had the experience of literally picking any barn on that backside and walking up to any stall and looking at a horse and waiting for someone to come over to you and say, ‘I’m the owner, I’m the trainer, I’m the groom’ and striking up a conversation and finding the most fascinating person you can imagine and thinking, ‘what a great story’. People want to know about this.”

She spoke of her love of Canterbury; the ups and the downs over the years and cooperation of track management giving her the ability to tell an open, honest story of the track and of racing in Minnesota.

“When people ask me what my favorite sport to cover is, I tell them without any hesitation, horse racing,” she said. “I don’t think that there is another sport in America that has such a diverse collection of people who are so fascinating, so interesting and so passionate about their sport. That’s why this is such a storytellers dream.

“It’s been such a privilege and such a pleasure,” she concluded, “to be able to tell that history, tell that story and let our state know what a perfect, wonderful gem they have here.”

The three human inductees took decidedly different paths in life but on one Saturday night in September they were all brought together because of their love of racing, their love of the horse and the hard work and dedication it takes to become not only good at what they chose to do, but to become Minnesota racing immortality.