Hay Dakota auditions for Mystic Lake Mile

Top local turf horses will compete Saturday at Canterbury Park in the featured ninth race, an allowance prep for the $100,000 Mystic Lake Mile on June 18.

The field for the race, carded at 7 1/2 furlongs on turf with multiple high-end allowance conditions and a $35,000 claiming option, is nine strong, but the venerable Nebraska-bred Diamond Joe is entered to race only if the feature is switched from turf to dirt.

Trainer Joel Berndt entered three horses and has the off-the-turf angle covered, if not with Dakota Candy then with Luvinmeiseasy. Luvinmeiseasy has won or placed in his last four starts while improving markedly since switching to true route racing. Dakota Candy has won three of his last five at Delta and Hawthorne but still is only marginally qualified to win a race at this level.

Berndt also has a key player for turf and one of the main Canterbury-based Mystic Lake Mile hopes in Hay Dakota. The 4-year-old Hay Dakota has won 4 of 9 on turf, and though he finished third by a neck last summer in the Mystic Lake Derby at Canterbury, Hay Dakota might have been the best horse in that race, closing strongly after dropping too far behind a soft pace.

In November, Hay Dakota beat 10 horses and upset the Grade 3 Commonwealth Stakes at Churchill Downs, but he was put away for a freshening following a subpar run in the Woodchopper Stakes at Fair Grounds in December and a better fourth-place finish while trying 1 1/2 miles in the John B. Connally Turf Cup on Jan. 29 at Sam Houston.

His main rival on turf is Majestic Pride, a 5-year-old Mac Robertson-trained gelding who makes his first start since September. Majestic Pride finished third last June in the Mystic Lake Mile and went on to find even better form, his peak performance probably produced in the $75,000 Brooks Field Stakes in August.

Majestic Pride, a front-running type in turf routes, got in five published workouts at Oaklawn in March and April before shipping north and worked six furlongs Tuesday at Canterbury in an eye-catching 1:12.80. The distance Saturday probably favors him, but there was late-week rain in the forecast, and a wet course might slant the advantage toward Hay Dakota.