Mr. Jagermeister earns a rest after big year
Valorie Lund, who grew up on a farm in western Oregon, was driving a horse trailer down a rainy highway in central Iowa on Wednesday morning. Five horses and one stall full of flowers from her Canterbury Park barn rode along behind her, but the star of the string she trains, the Minnesota-bred Mr. Jagermeister, remained back at Canterbury Park.
Lund, very much hands on, has started setting up winter shop in Arizona, where she was headed Wednesday with a first bunch of Canterbury horses. After those are deposited in the Southwest, she’ll drive back to Canterbury and pick up six more, this time loading Mr. Jagermeister onto her trailer. Lund does use a couple outside shippers to help move her stable south, but there’s no question who’s hauling Mr. Jagermeister.
“I’m not letting him get on anyone else’s van,” she said.
Mr. Jagermeister completed his 3-year-old campaign Sunday at Canterbury by galloping (pretty much literally) to a 4 1/4-length win in the Minnesota Championship Classic. His Beyer Speed Figure tumbled from a 99 in the Aug. 11 Minnesota Derby to an 82, but Mr. Jagermeister remained dominant against Minnesota-bred competition. Lund believes he can do even better than that, believes Mr. Jagermeister is meant to hit his real stride at age 4, and, with that in mind, has planned since midsummer to give the colt a break of two months, perhaps even three, at Carefree Farm in Arizona.
“He came out of his race good – sparkling, really,” Lund said. “He ran on Sunday, and on Tuesday morning he was walking on his hind legs around the shed row. I’m turning out a pretty fresh horse, but I believe every horse needs a break, and I’d like him to have more time to grow.”
Mr. Jagermeister will return to Lund’s barn in November or December. Mr. Jagermeister has sprinted effectively, but Lund plans to focus on longer races in 2019. And if open-company stakes don’t work out, no Minnesota-bred has yet gotten close to Mr. Jagermeister, and Canterbury starts back up again in early May.