Knick’s Honor wins Canterbury Derby, earns first stakes victory

Knick’s Honor used a firm one-mile turf trip at Canterbury Park to earn his first stakes victory, holding off Jackie Paper by three-quarters of a length in the $50,000 Canterbury Derby on June 27. The 3-year-old gelding stopped the timer in 1:36.18, returned $3.80 as the favorite and left Mr in Personal another 2 1/2 lengths back in third.

By Knicks Go out of Pure Elation, by Kitten’s Joy, he has a pedigree that carries dirt power and turf quality, and the Canterbury Derby showed how well that mix has translated to grass. Eduardo Gallardo rode him for owners Ray Huelsman and Keith Anderson, with Lynn Rarick training the colt bred by Pollock Farms in Kentucky.

Rarick had two runners in the Derby, including Mr Mo’s Magic, who came in as the morning-line favorite after winning the $110,000 Lambholm South Sophomore Turf at Tampa Bay Downs on March 29.

The Canterbury Derby was race 6 on an eight-race Northern Stars Turf Festival program that started at 5 p.m. Central and featured five turf races, including three $50,000 one-mile stakes: the Lady Canterbury, the Canterbury Derby and the Brooks Fields Mile. Canterbury’s card handled $1,749,614, and the track’s 2026 schedule has 23 stakes and named allowances totaling $1.1 million in purses across a 51-day meet running from May 23 through Sept. 19.

Forty-seven percent of Canterbury’s first 95 races of the meet were run on turf, and turf superintendent Kevin Cole called the course clean and consistent after recent rain evened it out.