Dirt runners dominate Battle of the Surfaces

SHAKOPEE, Minn. – While crowd of 18,915 at Canterbury Park was excited about the traditional camels, ostriches, and zebras seem on Extreme Day, a unique horse race was creating most of the buzz. The seventh race on the card, labeled the Battle of the Surfaces, featured a 20-horse field with 12 horses on turf and eight horses on dirt, a race only seen at Canterbury Park. The last time the race was run, in 2008, the starting gates failed to open together and the race was scrapped off the Extreme Day card.

Saturday, the gates sprung open perfectly. The race call was handled by track announcer Paul Allen covering the turf runners while track analyst, and the only woman to call a complete Thoroughbred race card in the United States, Angela Herman, handled the dirt race duties from the winners’ circle.

In order to keep the race as closely contested as possible, track officials took into account the class of horses running ($5,000 claimers on dirt and $7,500 claimers on turf) analyzed the varying speed of the turf and dirt courses and judged that the closest finish would result from the turf horses racing an extra sixteenth of a mile.

While track officials were very pleased with the race, they indicated that there will be some tweaking of the formula for next year. The dirt runners swept the superfecta with the first turf horse finished about 10 yards behind the dirt winner.

Dirt speedster Joshua’s Journey took the field down the backstretch. He was headed on the turn by Ivory Fudge but repelled that challenge and was able to outfinish a very game 30-1 outsider George Ray down the lane. Super Candy closed for third at 42-1 With 20 runners in the race and difficult handicapping angles, the payoffs were large. Joshua’s Journey returned $15.60 while George Ray paid $29 to place and Super Candy returned $14.20 to show. The exotics returned generously as well with the $1 exacta paying $231.10, the 50-cent trifecta $2,843.45, and the dime superfecta $1,591.53.