Canadian Derby

The Canadian Derby is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually at Northlands Park in Edmonton, Alberta. A Grade III event held near the end of August, it is open to thee-year-old horses and is raced on dirt over a distance of one and three-eights miles (11 furlongs). It was contested at 1 mile from 1930 to 1933, and at 1¼ miles from 1934 through 1956.

The race was the creation of future Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee R. James Speers and first run in 1930 at his Polo Park Racetrack in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Inaugurated as the Manitoba Stakes, it was restricted to Manitoba-bred horses until 1936 when the race was renamed the Manitoba Derby and made open to three-year-old horses bred in Canada. In 1941, the name was changed again to its present form as the Canadian Derby. In 1942, future Canadian and U.S. Racing Hall of Fame jockey Johnny Longden won this race.

As the Canadian Derby grew in prestige and its purse money increased, top horses from Toronto and Montreal began coming west to compete in the race. In 1937 the winner of the King's Plate, Canada's most prestigious race, made the 1,300 mile journey from Toronto by rail transport and won the Derby. Budpath, another King's Plate winner, won the 1941 edition of the Canadian Derby. However, not all eastern based horses fared so well. In 1942, Ten To Ace was shipped in from Toronto by leading owner/trainer Harry Giddings, Jr. The colt had won the King's Plate as well as the Prince of Wales Stakes and according to TIME magazine was being called "the greatest Canadian horse of all time." Not only was Ten To Ace defeated in the Canadian Derby, he finished dead last.

In 1956, Polo Park Racetrack was closed and the race was moved to its present location in Edmonton, Alberta.