Canterbury Park Hall of Fame Adds Five Members
The Canterbury Park Hall of Fame’s five newest inductees will be honored in a ceremony Friday, July 11 at the Shakopee racetrack. The Class of 2025 includes thoroughbred owner Joseph Novogratz of Excelsior, former jockey and current trainer Nik Goodwin, retired Minnesota-bred thoroughbred Ready to Runaway, Carin Offerman, whose contributions to Minnesota racing date back to the early 1980s, and media relations and public relations manager Jeff Maday. This quintet joins a group of more than 50 individuals and horses that comprise the best of Minnesota horse racing.
Novogratz became involved in horse racing more than 30 years ago when he joined a partnership and immediately experienced success. He has been leading owner at Canterbury five times, 2016
through 2019 and again last season. Two-year-olds from his stable won the Shakopee Juvenile three years in a row from 2017 to 2019, including 2017 Horse of the Meet Amy’s Challenge. His runners at Canterbury have also captured stakes wins in the Curtis Sampson Oaks, Victor S. Myers, Frances Genter, and Minnesota Derby.
Goodwin carved out a successful career for 30 years not only riding racehorses but also as a trusted horseman breaking thoroughbred babies in Ocala, FL. Goodwin was leading quarter horse rider at Canterbury four times and also holds the record for all-time quarter horse wins and purse earnings. The native of White Earth Ojibwe reservation in Northern Minnesota was inducted into the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.
Ready to Runaway set a new standard for Minnesota-bred mares in her Hall of Fame career spanning from 2018 to 2022. The 2020 horse of the year sits atop the ranks of earnings at Canterbury among fillies and mares, totaling $533,400 through twenty-one top-two finishes. All fourteen of her victories came in Minnesota, including nine stakes wins from six furlongs to a mile and a sixteenth.
One start prior to her initial stakes score, the 2019 Frances Genter, owner John Mentz and trainer Mac Robertson claimed Ready to Runaway for $25,000. That win kickstarted a streak that saw
no other filly finish within four lengths of her, capped by besting her elders in the Minnesota Distaff Classic Championship that season. She defended that title the next three years becoming the only winner of a Minnesota-bred stakes four consecutive times. Ready to Runaway foaled a Flameaway colt on April 13 in Minnesota.
Offerman registered the first three state-bred horses with the newly formed Minnesota Racing Commission in 1984. She owned one of the first thoroughbred farms in the state, operating in the
show horse world prior to Canterbury Downs opening, when she quickly embraced horse racing. Active in the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association as a long-time board member, she served as MTA president at the time the racetrack re-opened in 1994. She also served for many years as the chair of the breeders’ fund advisory committee, a group that had great influence on Minnesota racing and breeding policies. An original member of the Canterbury Park Board of Directors, joining when the company went public in 1994, Offerman currently is lead director. She is one of few horse owners and breeders to race horses at Canterbury each year since it opened in 1985.
Maday is Canterbury’s media relations manager, sharing the racetrack’s stories and messages with the public as well as being an instrumental part of daily operations in the simulcast racebook. He began working on the ‘frontside’ when Canterbury reopened in 1994, following a brief stint as a groom.
The Canterbury Park Hall of Fame was founded in 1995 to recognize people and horses that have made important and lasting contributions to the racing industry within the state. The selection committee consists of representatives of local horsemen organizations, media, and Canterbury Park. The new members will be recognized during the races on Hall of Fame Night this Saturday.
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