ND Horse Park Announces Horse of the Year Poll Results 

After giving race fans the past several weeks to cast their votes in the North Dakota Horse Park’s first ever public poll for Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse of the Year honors, the Horse Park is excited to reveal the winners that the fans have chosen!

The 2009 Thoroughbred/Quarter Horse racing season at the North Dakota Horse Park came to a conclusion on September 7^th with practically every Horse Park record broken at least once, sometimes twice.  Although the track missed one day of its 16 day race meet due to inclement weather, records for total attendance, total handle and total income were all eclipsed in a fantastic summer of racing at the Fargo, North Dakota track.

Sunday’s $8,500 North Dakota Sunrise Futurity was a basket full of unknowns.  None in the field of seven had been stakes tested and only one of the contenders had ever finished in the money.  Two were first time starters and one had never worked or raced stateside.

Each summer, at racetracks all over the nation, trainers and owners watch, wait and hope as their newest stars take the track: the 2-year-olds. Filled with the unraced, untried and untested, the “baby races” are many times amongst the most interesting to watch and the most difficult to handicap.  Monday’s Sunrise Futurity for North Dakota-bred Thoroughbred “babies” is no different.

A Trio of Titans
Past, Present, and Future Handicap headliners clash in the Shooting Star 

Charles Dickens would have liked the lineup for the Shooting Star Stakes.  After all, ghosts of the Horse Park past, present, and future will be on display.For the first time, three North Dakota-Bred Derby winners will face off against one another as Maddies Blues, Aferds Code Red, and Augie Gee hit the track for Sunday’s $4,000 co-feature.