To paraphrase T.S. Eliot:
This is how the season ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Belle recovered from the cut in her leg but with weather curtailing training at the Trackside Training Center at Churchill Downs, we have run out of time to get her ready enough for a start at Delta Downs.
The good news is that a group formed from current and former Clubbers will be picking her up to race her in 2018. After shopping her for a bit but not getting any serious takers the decision was made that if we had to sell her inexpensively (like we did Vanderboom Ridge last season) it made more sense to let some Clubbers buy her and continue up the ownership ladder.
The money is being gathered now and the group formed so the deal should be consummated by the middle of next week.
We will collect bills at the end of the month, finalize expenses and put the 2017 Club to bed in mid-January (hopefully) – Just in time to kick off the 2018 Club!
There will be no change in fees for 2018 and I would anticipate enrollment again staying open until the end of February and be able to start shopping Oaklawn with Nevada and either California or Illinois with Clay in March. While there is no guarantee that we’ll be able to get two horses, enrollment has held pretty steady around the 150 mark which should allow us to move forward on two fronts. If we’re able to draw more participants – all the better!
Belle’s final stats for the Club were 9 starts with a pair of wins and a third with over $20,000 in earnings. We’ll do a more complete recap soon.
Canterbury Racing Club 
What did you sell her for? Seems like we could have gotten some more money from someone we didn’t know.
We had people look at her but no one wanted to pay more than a couple of thousand dollars – if that – for her because she had the scab on her ankle, didn’t win at $5000 and they felt they needed a bargain to take a chance on her. If we’re only going to sell her for $2000 then we might as well sell her to people we know where she’ll be taken care of than someone that we don’t and won’t value her the same way.
What does “picking her up to race” mean? Will they be purchasing her? Thanks for the clarification.
Yes. They are buying her.
So we won’t get any money back this year
We will. We just don’t know how much yet but – very roughly – a third of the money we started with will be in the account at the end of the year.
Since this is my first year in the club, do you send us a check or do we pick up our share at the track?
Once all the accounting is done – sometime in mid-late January – we’ll announce the total and folks will have the option to roll it over into their portion of the 2018 Club or we’ll send out checks to the folks that aren’t going to rejoin.
Thank you for a fun season with Belle.
Happy Belle will be staying with the “Canterbury family”. Will continue to cheer her on!
Love Belle, glad to hear some clubbers are picking her up… she’ll continue to be in good hands. Go Belle Go!!!