Trainer Joel Berndt wins 1,000th career race

Canterbury Park leading trainer reaches milestone with Thursday night victory

Thoroughbred trainer Joel Berndt won his 1,000th career race Thursday night when Modern Science won the sixth race at Canterbury Park. Berndt has won two training titles and is currently the leading trainer at the Shakopee, Minn. racetrack. Modern Science was ridden by Lindey Wade and is owned by Bob Lothenbach.

Berndt, 55, won his first recognized race at Fonner Park in Grand Island, Neb. on March 24, 1991 with a horse named Sweet Cap. He had started horses at smaller, unrecognized tracks on the fair circuit in his native South Dakota beginning in 1988. He has won 342 races at Canterbury.

“Where’d the time go?” Berndt said. “It seems like I was just in Nebraska with five horses and doing all the work myself and here we are with a leading owner and a nice set of horses and a thousand wins. Time goes fast.”

Berndt has saddled 6,100 starters, earning $17,709,396 in purses. Illinois-bred Silver Bid was his top earner, winning multiple stakes and earning $743,039. Berndt’s lone graded stakes win was achieved in 2016 with Hay Dakota in the Grade 3 Commonwealth Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs.

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