The 25th anniversary of live pari-mutuel horse racing in Minnesota was marked on Saturday at Canterbury Park. The celebration was a bit more modest than what took place on June 26, 1985, the Wednesday on which the track named Canterbury Downs opened a racing season that would stretch to mid-October.
The crowd on opening day was 15,079, and that didn't include the dozens of reporters monitoring the event for Twin Cities newspapers and television stations.
The Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press carried full graded handicaps as well as selection boxes containing the 1-2-3 choices of three other handicappers. They were choosing winners by the bushel for the first couple of weeks.
It took a while for us Minnesota rubes to figure out that it might not be magical for an experienced horseplayer to find the speed in those early five- and six-horse fields.
The average attendance for 83 dates was 13,162. One year later, the Downs held a 95-day thoroughbred meet with an average attendance of 12,116 and total wagering of $105 million. This was followed by a 10-day quarterhorse meet and then 55 days of harness racing that concluded on Nov. 30. The buggies didn't bring in the customers, and their time in Shakopee was short-lived.
No matter. The excitement level at Canterbury was immense in those first two summers, particularly when the Pick Six pot would reach $200,000 or beyond. Doesn't seem like much to get worked up over, compared to the Powerball, right?
Remember this: The greatest competition faced by Canterbury Downs in its first several years was high water. The mass of population was to the north and east of the racetrack, and a favored shortcut was to wind around and take the Bloomington Ferry Bridge.
Trouble was, any time the Minnesota River was high, the water would threaten -- or cover -- the road south of the bridge and it would be shut down. On any number of April, May and even June days, you could find Canterbury's owners and general managers and promotion directors staring forlornly through the press box windows as vehicles entered the track at a slower rate than anticipated. "That @%x#=! Ferry Bridge," the interested parties would grumble.