I reached out to Joe for insider secrets. Joe has lived for 72 years and has worked on a ranch for all but three of them. Instead, they’re brought up here courtesy of Joe Hedrick, proprietor of Hedrick’s Exotic Animal Farm Bed and Breakfast in Nickerson, Kansas. Of course, economics demand that Canterbury Park doesn’t keep these exotic animals around only to race one day a year. You’re lucky to finish a race on an ostrich.” The jockeys say riding one is like sitting on a football. The same goes for the camels - in 2012 the mayor of Shakopee himself rode one, and he did great! The ostriches give their riders the hardest time of all, though.
The zebras are good-natured, but they’re still a lot wilder than our thoroughbreds. “The animals are a blast to watch, which is why Extreme Race Day is our most popular event of the year. “It’s always unusual,” said Jeff Maday, media relations manager of Canterbury Park. Instead, It’s all about the shock you experience when you witness how silly a camel looks when it runs.
There’s no betting on Extreme Race Day, save for that which you might care to do with your friends. It’s on this occasion that they have camels, zebras, and ostriches at their race track for a family friendly day of watching foreign creatures vie to see who’s the fastest among themselves. The people at Canterbury Park know I’m not the only one who feels that way, so that’s why this year on Saturday, July 15th they’re holding their annual Extreme Race Day.
I want animals out of an Indiana Jones movie to lope around the track while I look on in amazement, or even giant birds to sprint around the thing while the jockeys riding them desperately grope for a way to hold on to those bodies by Dr. As much as I love the horses, though, I sometimes wish I could watch the slightly more exotic animals race. That passion takes me to Canterbury Park in Shakopee pretty often. There’s no greater feeling in the world than scrutinizing the program before a race, picking the horse with the funniest name, placing some outrageous bet on him like $5 or even $10, and then sitting back smoking a cigar the size of a telephone while I watch him lose so I can move on to my next pick. The thunder of the hooves, the cheers from the audience, the beer served in plastic cups that you can’t smash on the ground out of frustration. Whichever square on the grid the cow “picked” was the winner. That was where they drew a big grid on the grass, fenced it off, and let a cow hang out inside the enclosure until she did that thing cows do whenever they feel like it. And back in the podunk town I grew up in, I never once won at cow bingo in all the years I played it at the Fourth of July fair. When I went to Vegas I got more pleasure out of the fountains outside of the Bellagio than I did losing my money for a hotel room playing the Gilligan’s Island slot machine. When I play poker, I don’t consider it betting so much as I do donating to the other players. Promotion runs weekly from 06/06/22 for a minimum of 4 weeks and may end at any time after such period. To qualify for additional ‘Stayers Club’ incentives, players must have qualified for at least two of the previous four weeks. Bonus credit will be £/€2, £/€5 or £/€10 based on the highest six settled bets.
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