Can't wait for the big showdown...

[cmorioles]

...at Canterbury! Heliskier vs Bourbon County should be a doozy. The two Minnesota bred geldings are destined to see each other before the meet ends. Heliskier is undefeated in 7 starts from 5.5f to 1m70y and has never really been asked to run.

Bourbon County flopped first out at Penn, then went to Canterbury and exploded with crushing wins of 14 and 9 lengths, earning 95 and 93 Beyer figures. You can have the Belmont, I love this stuff.

[JerseyJ]

Another spectacular performance outside of a big track tonight at Penn in the 5th Race. Pennsylvania-bred 4YO filly Evening Show absolutely demolished albeit a weak field of State-Bred NW1X allowance foes by 18 3/4 lengths in 1:09.4. Came off a layoff last time at Penn to beat State-Bred Maidens by 10 lengths with a 92 beyer. Came back tonight with another awesome effort. I know the waters will get deeper, but this looks like a serious talented filly. Always nice to see talented horses coming from nowhere.

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by cmorioles

...at Canterbury! Heliskier vs Bourbon County should be a doozy. The two Minnesota bred geldings are destined to see each other before the meet ends. Heliskier is undefeated in 7 starts from 5.5f to 1m70y and has never really been asked to run.

Bourbon County flopped first out at Penn, then went to Canterbury and exploded with crushing wins of 14 and 9 lengths, earning 95 and 93 Beyer figures. You can have the Belmont, I love this stuff.

Those have to be the fast figs in Canterbury history who is the trainer?

[rgustafson]

Originally Posted by freddymo

Those have to be the fast figs in Canterbury history who is the trainer?

Freddy,
Heliskier's best Beyer is a 94. He is trained by Mac Robertson. Bourbon County is trained by Bernell Rhone who has been at Canterbury from day one in 1985. The only faster Beyer I could find was by Onlynurimagination who owns the track record for six furlongs at 108.04. The then six year old gelding by Marfa, a Texas bred, was given a 104 Beyer. He set the record in one of the claiming crown races on July 16, 2005.

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by rgustafson

Freddy,
Heliskier's best Beyer is a 94. He is trained by Mac Robertson. Bourbon County is trained by Bernell Rhone who has been at Canterbury from day one in 1985. The only faster Beyer I could find was by Onlynurimagination who owns the track record for six furlongs at 108.04. The then six year old gelding by Marfa, a Texas bred, was given a 104 Beyer. He set the record in one of the claiming crown races on July 16, 2005.

Mr Rhone must be a heck of a trainer

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by freddymo

Those have to be the fast figs in Canterbury history who is the trainer?

Probably Minnesota breds. Cheapskate surely had a big one when he beat my favorite horse Broad Brush in the St. Paul Derby, but that was before they were published.

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by freddymo

Mr Rhone must be a heck of a trainer

I think I could have trained that horse to win. He wins a pole or so.

[pmayjr]

Helliskier has only run against MN breds. I was disappointed after the CBY meet ended last fall, that Robertson didn't try running him against open company at Hawthorne or Oaklawn last fall or this past winter.

MN breds are pretty funky, so he's beating up on not much. The thing that kinda doesn't motivate Robertson to branch out against open company, is in the middle of the Canterbury meet last year was when they struck the purse agreement/partnership with Mystic Lake Casino. So the purses immediately went up, and will continue this way for years to come. So with all that money infused into the purses, what motivation do they have to run him against open company?

He could seriously become a poor-man's Star Guitar lol. I'm hoping that if he keeps dominating MN-breds, and he's seriously not just beating them, he's dominating them- that his connections will at least try him in an open allowance race somewhere. If he does well in that, try and move him up a little further. It's just tough to tell how good he actually is if he only runs against MN Breds. Let's see how this summer goes and see if its still worth discussing at that point.

[rgustafson]

Originally Posted by cmorioles

Probably Minnesota breds. Cheapskate surely had a big one when he beat my favorite horse Broad Brush in the St. Paul Derby, but that was before they were published.

Craig, another pre Beyer that had to be big was when Olympio set the track record for 1 1/8 miles in 146 2/5 in 1991 when he got up by a head at the wire under Edddie Delahoussaye to beat Julie Krone on Richman, in the then named Minnesota Derby.

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by pmayjr

He could seriously become a poor-man's Star Guitar lol. I'm hoping that if he keeps dominating MN-breds, and he's seriously not just beating them, he's dominating them- that his connections will at least try him in an open allowance race somewhere. If he does well in that, try and move him up a little further. It's just tough to tell how good he actually if he only runs against MN Breds. Let's see how this summer goes and see if its still worth discussing at that point.

That was the point though. Can he dominate Bourbon County? He looks like the real deal.

[rgustafson]

Originally Posted by cmorioles

That was the point though. Can he dominate Bourbon County? He looks like the real deal.

My understanding is that Bourbon County will follow the same path Heliskier took last year and point for the Victor Meyers and the Minnesota Derby races restricted to three year old Mn. breds. That could lead to a possible matchup on 9/1, Minnesota Festival of Champions day in races restricted to Mn. breds with two races as possibilities, both for three year old and up, one at six furlongs and one at 1 1/16 miles.

[Cannon Shell]

BC was sent to me with another MN bred (Ski Bum) last Summer with the thought that they would get to the races last Fall/Winter and would return for MN bred races this Summer. I was led to believe that Ski Bum was potentially a pretty good horse and Bourbon County was a project horse who would probably not be much since he has pretty significant conformation issues. There is a picture on the facebook page of his owner Scott Rake that shows BC as a foal with heavily bangaged legs with duct tape trying to give him support. Of course I have no idea how to import that here, perhaps Drugs can?

Anyway Ski Bum never showed much, made 1 horrid start and retired and just competed in and won a low level show event this past weekend.
Bourbon County on the other hand acted like a good horse from day 1. He galloped so smoothly if you were watching him from the side though if you saw him coming at you you would think anything but smooth. I actually sent him to Monmouth last Summer and thought that we had a shot at making the end of that meet. He outworked everything he was matched against and was up to 5 furlongs when he came up lame. There wasn't anything terribly wrong, no chips or fractures but his knees were still too open and his legs just weren't ready to handle the stress of racing at that point. Dr Rake allowed me to give him all the time he needed and we just messed around with him for awhile at the training center, never taking him out of training completely so we didn't have to start back from square one but not doing any speed work with him, somedays just walking him around the track with Hank (the 28 year old pony).

We started back with him in December and had quite a few setbacks between his wanting to do too much and weather/track issues. We used to take him out and stand him in the snow which he was very good about.
When the end of Feb rolled around and he was in a holding pattern the decision was made to do some vet work on him to try to get him over the hump as we were sending him back to the track soon and that opening day race at Canterbury (condition book was out really early) was the initial goal. He went to Penn and of course had some issues in the gate even though he had been perfect the previous summer and at the training center. We wound up running him in his first race on the 30th that was deemed a flop. However it was a means to an end as he got though it, came out sound and while I was a little pissed at the jockey for going 3/4 wide on the turn when he was supposed to just let him run down the lane (he was about 1/2 mile fit but there were 7 weeks to Canterbury, he was getting worse in the gate and the clock was ticking on how much longer the owner was going to keep him in training) we now didnt have to worry about the gate card, he got a little experience and while he was extremely tired (of course the track at Penn that night was a tiring beach) the biggest issue I had was figuring out how to get him to MN. I called the owner who had nothing but bad luck in the racing business over the last few months and stressed to him not to be discouraged, that the horse was about 70% for the race and not to read too much into the finish, and don't forget to make the early nomination for the MN Derby. I don't know that he believed me but did make the nomination.

We didn't do too much speed work with him after that, just galloping and working on his fitness. He went to MN via KY at the end of April and we let Bernell know what he had done but he took over from there. The horse has a lot of talent, as much as any horse I've trained since Battle Won and could certainly handle open company at some level. I have my doubts that he can get much more than 1 1/16 though against MN bred 3yo's could probably win at any distance. How long he will stay sound is an unknown but in theory he could get better as he hasn't been pushed on all that much and unlike most crooked but fast horses hasn't been injected a million times.

[rgustafson]

Thanks for all the information. Much appreciated

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

There is a picture on the facebook page of his owner Scott Rake that shows BC as a foal with heavily bangaged legs with duct tape trying to give him support. Of course I have no idea how to import that here, perhaps Drugs can?

To import a picture in a post here:

Right click on the picture you want to copy, and hit "copy image location"

After you do that, come to the point in your post where you want the picture to be inserted.

Click on the yellow mountain icon that looks like this:

A box will pop up with 'http://' delete the box clear, and then just right click and hit 'paste'

After you've done it once or twice, it literally takes three seconds.

[Cannon Shell]

Bourbon County as a baby

[Storm Cadet]

Cannon, let me know who that trainer was that used duct tape...I will send a case of the real tape to him

[JohnGalt1]

Sunday Heliskier faces open company for the first time Sunday June 16 in the 7th race at Canterbury in an 11 horse field.

He's the 3-2 morning line favorite.

[gamblin4ever]

I didn't watch race but chart shows Heliskier vanned off after bad stumble at start.

[JohnGalt1]

I was there.

He went face first in the dirt at the start. Bell was lucky to not fall.

I heard *rumor alert* that Heliskier cut his face and that Derek Bell's feet came out of the stirrups, and just galloped him to the finish.

Heliskier was vanned off as a precaution. I hope it's not seriou

Watch the race yourself to decide for your self.

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt1

I was there.

He went face first in the dirt at the start. Bell was lucky to not fall.

I heard *rumor alert* that Heliskier cut his face and that Derek Bell's feet came out of the stirrups, and just galloped him to the finish.

Heliskier was vanned off as a precaution. I hope it's not seriou

Watch the race yourself to decide for your self.

Hope he is ok. Bourbon County should surface pretty soon.