Patrick Reusse: A quarter-century later, Canterbury keeps on riding

The 25th anniversary of live pari-mutuel horse racing in Minnesota was marked on Saturday at Canterbury Park. The celebration was a bit more modest than what took place on June 26, 1985, the Wednesday on which the track named Canterbury Downs opened a racing season that would stretch to mid-October.

The crowd on opening day was 15,079, and that didn't include the dozens of reporters monitoring the event for Twin Cities newspapers and television stations.

The Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press carried full graded handicaps as well as selection boxes containing the 1-2-3 choices of three other handicappers. They were choosing winners by the bushel for the first couple of weeks.

It took a while for us Minnesota rubes to figure out that it might not be magical for an experienced horseplayer to find the speed in those early five- and six-horse fields.

The average attendance for 83 dates was 13,162. One year later, the Downs held a 95-day thoroughbred meet with an average attendance of 12,116 and total wagering of $105 million. This was followed by a 10-day quarterhorse meet and then 55 days of harness racing that concluded on Nov. 30. The buggies didn't bring in the customers, and their time in Shakopee was short-lived.

No matter. The excitement level at Canterbury was immense in those first two summers, particularly when the Pick Six pot would reach $200,000 or beyond. Doesn't seem like much to get worked up over, compared to the Powerball, right?

Remember this: The greatest competition faced by Canterbury Downs in its first several years was high water. The mass of population was to the north and east of the racetrack, and a favored shortcut was to wind around and take the Bloomington Ferry Bridge.

Trouble was, any time the Minnesota River was high, the water would threaten -- or cover -- the road south of the bridge and it would be shut down. On any number of April, May and even June days, you could find Canterbury's owners and general managers and promotion directors staring forlornly through the press box windows as vehicles entered the track at a slower rate than anticipated. "That @%x#=! Ferry Bridge," the interested parties would grumble.

Twenty-five years later, people will tell you that Canterbury Downs failed because of the grandiosity of the original business plan. Brooks Hauser and Brooks Fields and their partners spent $70 million on the facility, along with the obligation to provide a big tax cut to the state of Minnesota.

So, the plan that the racetrack could go on endlessly with 95-day meetings and average crowds of 8,000 to 9,000 and daily handles or more than $1 million was far-fetched, although not so much as we now believe.

In Canterbury's grandest summer of 1986, Minnesota's Indian tribes were still limited to bingo as a gambling outlet. The Mdewakanton Sioux, Canterbury's neighbors up the hill, were running their high-stakes bingo out of the Little Six, a building not as large as the average barn on the track's backside.

In 1988, the state of Minnesota negotiated a deal with the tribes: They would get to add slot machines and deal blackjack at their casinos -- and the state would get nothing.

By 1990, the Mdewakantons were opening the ever-larger Mystic Lake Casino and Hotel, a mere 7-minute drive from the racetrack's front gate.

In Canterbury's grand summer, Minnesota didn't have a state lottery. That also started in 1990 -- and the riches available quickly turned the Pick Six pools into chump change for citizens simply trying to get lucky.

In Canterbury's grand summer, nobody had heard of the Internet, much less Internet gaming. It would be another decade before horseplayers could make their bets on a home computer and cut out the track.

One more thing: In that grand summer of 1986, the Twins were in a 16-year stretch with two interesting seasons (1977, 1984) and Minnesotans were looking for another sports outlet. And then in '87, they would win the World Series and average 2.3 million customers over a seven-year stretch.

Twenty-five years after its opening, the track survives today as Canterbury Park, with 62 days of live racing, year-round simulcasts and a remodeled poker room.

Considering the competition that has arisen, thoroughbred fans should be grateful for what we still have in Shakopee, rather than the daily vibrancy at the racetrack that once was.

Patrick Reusse can be heard noon-4 weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP. • preusse@startribune.com