Injuries sustained during a morning workout last week will sideline Canterbury Park Hall of Fame jockey Derek Bell for the remainder of the meet. Bell suffered a broken kneecap and wrist while returning a horse to the barn last Sunday morning.
Bell was unavailable for comment but his agent, Chad Anderson, said Friday that X-rays have confirmed the injuries to Bell’s kneecap and wrist.
“He had finished working a horse and was returning it to the barn when it happened,” Anderson said. “The horse flipped over on him and struck him a couple of times in the legs.”
The incident occurred on a morning when one other horse broke down during a workout.
Bell was scheduled to ride Heliskier, last year’s Horse of the Year, that afternoon, but missed the mount for the first time in the horse’s career.
Bell was having a solid meet when the accident occurred. He is currently in sixth place in the standings, with a 28-20-20 record from 141 mounts and earnings of $594,382.
Anderson said that Bell intends to meet with doctors who have worked with the Minnesota Twins next week for MRIs of the injuries.
The only six-time riding champion at Canterbury Park, Bell is one of four active Canterbury Park Hall of Fame jockeys, one of two in Shakopee. He and Scott Stevens still compete yearly at Canterbury. Mike Smith, the track’s first riding champion in 1985, is a prominent rider in California and Luis Quinonez, who won five consecutive titles at Canterbury, rides primarily in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Bell holds career earnings and wins records in Shakopee and is second all time in win percentages. On June 14, 2002, he rode six winners on a single card.
THE LEGACY OF ALMAR FARM
Countless stories will be told Saturday when family and friends gather to recall the long, accomplished life of Hall of Fame breeder Alvin Goebel. He and his wife, Marlys, are inductees in Canterbury Park’s Hall of Fame for their breeding contributions in the Minnesota industry as owners of Almar Farm in Cottage Grove.
Alvin died in January of 2012 and will be honored with Saturday’s third race, the Alvin Goebel Memorial.
Goebel bought his first racehorse at age 19 and was involved with horses thereafter over a span of 70 years.
He claimed only one horse in all that time. “He didn’t like having horses claimed on him, so he thought other people probably didn’t either,” Marlys said.
Apparently the policy worked. Marlys said they had maybe two horses claimed from them in their many years of racing.
One of those horses, Speakers Action, will run in the second race of today’s card.
He is owned by Tom and Karen Metzen and trainer Dave Van Winkle.
Metzen was involved in a package of horses with the Goebels during the 1950s that were trained by D. Wayne Lukas. “Alvin, Pete Thompson and I and our wives were involved,” recalled Metzen. “We raced those horses in Rochester and then took them to Park Jefferson in South Dakota.”
Marlys was asked if Alvin ever considered retiring from racing during his 70-year involvement.
“He did retire once,” she said. “It lasted for about a month.”
This blog was written by Canterbury Staff Writer Jim Wells. Wells was a longtime sportswriter at the Pioneer Press and is a member of the Canterbury Park Hall of Fame.
