Fun Night

It was great to see many of you last night out at CBY to watch Diablo's win. The winning margin (7 lenghths) represents our "easiest" win thus far. Just a word of caution - last night's competition was pretty weak. Furture races will be tougher. That said, she ran well and should be competitive as she ventures into the open claiming ranks.

Buck Night

Just a quick note to encourage anyone in town to try and make it out to see Diablo's race on Thursday night. The race is at a reasonable time (8:30 approx), the weather is supposed to be great, it looks like Diablo will be very competitive, and it is buck night (food and drink specials). The $1 specials usually attract a fun, high-energy crowd. Speaking of good investments, I will be doing our quarterly share evaluation sometime in the next couple weeks. As such, if anyone is looking to up their share or knows someone who may be interested in buying in, now is the time. Hope to see many of you Thursday night!

Back from Canada

I have attached below an excerpt from the track's website. My opinion is basically the same - Brigade overcame a horrific trip to get up for second place. He was very game in defeat. We should be very proud of his effort. Not the same can be said for Twinpost. I just watched a replay of the race this morning and have not yet talked to Jamie. Regardless, she ran a disappointing race.

My brother taped the Brigade race with his camcorder. With a little tech help, I hope to have a link to the video on the blog sometime this week.

From the Assiniboia Downs website:

Going six wide around the final turn was not the plan trainer Carl Anderson gave rider Alan Cuthbertson to guide Illusive Force home; however nothing could stop the 7-year-old chestnut from winning the $45,000 Free Press Stakes. Southern invader Lite Brigade got wiped out at the start and still edged out the big grey Elite Mercedes for third.

Illusive Force sat quietly and let speedsters Global Crisis and Shadow Rush set a very quick opening quarter. Cuthbertson said, “When I asked him to run, away he went.” Illusive Force devoured his rivals with a power move around the corner and pulled off to win by one in the late stretch.

Lite Brigade who shipped in for the Big Sprint from Prairie Meadows kept his record intact with another second place finish. Now eight for eight in the top two; the 5-year-old by Lite the Fuse overcame the bad start and finish second.

Horse of the Year in 2006, Elite Mercedes, who is still trying to find his form from last year, winning six straight including three stakes, showed he still can be counted on for a pay cheque with his third place finish.

Checking in from Moorhead

It's a little after midnight here - we left after watching Peagus race on Saturday night. If all goes well, we should be pulling into Winnipeg around noon. For those going to Canterbury to watch Twinpost, have fun. We'll do our best up here to cheer on Brigade.

Stakes Debut

As most if you have seen, we have entered Brigade in a stakes race this Sunday up in Winnipeg. As of now, I am planning on driving up there to cheer him on. Also on Sunday, Twinpost will make her debut for us in a race here at Canterbury. As such, starting with Iron Boy's race tonight, we will have 3 horses running in races worth a collective $80k this weekend. For those coming to see Twinpost on Sunday, I will talk to the person in charge of simulcasting at Canterbury to see if she will be able to pull in the signal from Winnipeg. For those coming to the race tonight, I will see you there.

O Canada

We're going to scracth Lite Brigade and point him to a race next weekend in Winnepeg. We still have lots of paperwork to file, but if all goes well, we'll have him up there to run in a stakes race on Father's Day. More details to follow...

Busy Night

We claimed a couple 4-year old fillies last night - Go Go Diablo ($7,500) and Twinpost ($20,000). We split Diablo with Jamie (50%) and bought Twinpost with the same partners as Iron Boy (25%). Both fillies are lightly raced (19 and 18 lifetime races respectively). Diablo has been racing at some smaller tracks after starting her career at some major circuits whereas Twinpost has done most of her running with Stakes company down in Arizona. Physically, Diablo checked out fine after the race and I am still awaiting word on Twinpost - it was proabaly close to midnight before Jamie got her back in the barn. In the event we lose Lite Brigade tomorrow, we may want to consider this a pre-emptive strike in order to keep the action going at CBY this summer.
In other news, I ordered the polo shirts yesterday and the 2nd order of hats should be here later next week. It's supposed to be a good weather day tomorrow, hope to see many of you at the track.