An appropriate time to raise money for Macbeth Fund

Canterbury has led the nation the past nine years in generating donations to the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund for disabled riders. The fund was co-founded by television personality Tim Conway after he emceed an awards dinner at Canterbury Downs in the late 1980's. Canterbury has continued its fund-raising efforts ever since.

Last week, three Canterbury jockeys, Scott Stevens, Paul Nolan, and Don Proctor, were badly injured in a riding accident.

"As we saw last week, when we had three jockeys break vertebrae in their backs, accidents can happen so quickly," said Jeff Maday, Canterbury's media relations manager. "It's not a matter of if a rider will fall during his career, it's a matter of when that fall is going to happen."

On Sunday, Canterbury will hold a silent auction for the MacBeth Fund. Some of the items to be auctioned are a Joe Mauer autographed baseball bat, tickets to Minnesota Twins games, sports memorabilia, sporting event tickets, restaurant gift certificates, bottles of wine, and a weekend fishing trip with jockey Nik Goodwin. The ultimate auction item is one month of free training by five-time Canterbury leading trainer Mac Robertson. More information is available at Canterburypark.com.

Commemorative hats and T-shirts will be on sale at Canterbury this week and a number of events featuring Canterbury jockeys are scheduled. Donation bins will be set up throughout the track.