Getting ready to Run at Canterbury

It was a busy morning as partner Tom Lindquist and I watched our trainer Gary Scherer's stable of horses get out on the track at Canterbury. We watched our two year olds run down the lane for the first time. They looked great and one was even called a Ferrari by a rider, which made Tom and I smile for obvious reasons. Our 5 year old stakes winning  BJ's Angel also got on the track for her first workout since having minor surgery in January. She was so excited to finally get to run at speed again that she ran the bullet 3 furlong workout in 35.80. I had to check that time and found it was the fastest work by some margin since the track opened for works 5 days ago. Boy she loves to run just like her mama Demiparfait did.

Beside Gary and several of his returning staff, it was also nice to see a few other friendly faces out there. Denny Velazquez,  who ranked 6th in the jockey standings in Earnings Per Start at Canterbury among those with 100 starts last year, worked many of our horses. Only a few other jockeys have arrived. I also had a chance to see a few trainers including Tony Rengstorf. Tony trains Samstar, a 3 year old which we co-own with Curtis Sampson. Samstar has already worked 4 furlongs with a time that ranked 3rd out of 16 a couple days ago so we are hoping for a nice 3 year old season from him.

Of course, workout times mean little unless you double check the times and visually observe the effort required to attain the time. This is something many owners and handicappers fail to understand. Nevertheless, it's nice to see everybody healthy and going well with opening day just around the corner.

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