If you were at Canterbury Park on Sunday, you saw a series of events before and during the fifth race that were pretty much singular in their sequence -- and came close to a catastrophe that was averted by the actions of several jockeys in the race.
If you only saw this tweet, you only know a fraction of what happened:
The full story is best told by track announcer Paul Allen, who called the race, and Star Tribune reporter Rachel Blount, who watched a video of what happened and talked to several people who were there. Both of them emailed their observations, which have been combined and edited to tell the story.
PA: "Never seen anything like our fifth Sunday. Never. And I've called around 25,000 races over 25 years. I mean, first a horse flips in the gate. Delay. Then the seven (horse) runs off and is loose for a few more minutes. Longer delay."
RB: "Both horses were scratched; neither was seriously injured. Riders also were OK."
After about a 10-minute delay, the race started.
RB: "Tiz a Princess broke fine. Then she took a left turn after a few strides, unseated Patrick Canchari and jumped over the fence separating the turf course from the infield."
PA: "(Tiz a Princess) ran into the infield and was heading north towards the center of the final turn and doing so as the horses racing were heading that way. I split my race call between reminding patrons to hold all betting tickets because I knew the stewards -- the track referees -- would conduct an inquiry, Watching the horses race and the loose one potentially wreaking havoc while meandering."
