Canterbury Park’s stable area opened up over the weekend and the first horses have arrived, mostly from Phoenix (Turf Paradise) but soon horses from Hot Springs, AR (Oaklawn) will start to arrive as well.  Though there has not been a definitive date set to start racing, we’re all hopeful that we will get the green light for racing to begin in early to mid-June.

In preparation, we are looking at a bit of a different strategy this year.  Whatever happens with racing, should racing commence it will be different than past years with one of the differences being a shortened meet schedule.  We don’t know the exact numbers of days but it will be less than the traditional 67-69 racing days of past years and could be as few as 50.

Nevada Litfin is looking into the possibility of sharing ownership of two horses with us: 50/50.  This would give us a pair of runners in that barn and Karl will claim something from either Lone Star or Will Rogers (or maybe opening weekend here) which would give us three runners to follow for the season.  This would ensure us more racing opportunities and give us an extra horse to follow for the season – hopefully making up for the some of the lost time.

It is VERY likely that racing will be conducted without fans for much, if not all, of the 2020 season.  That does cut down on some of the activities that we usually are able to bring to you: kick-off and closing breakfasts, paddock and winners’ circle (hopefully) visits and backside tours.  We will look to be a little creative on how we can bring some of that to you throughout the season perhaps doing a virtual backside tour or a “Facebook Live” morning workout session or whatever else we (or you all) can think of.

We hope that we will hear about racing shortly and when we do, we’ll bring that to you as soon as possible, probably first through the twitter feed (@CBY_Racing_Club) and the Facebook page and then with a post.

We appreciate you hanging in there…things are slowly looking up.