Mo Carrots for Mo

Although our time was short, Laura and I got a chance to stop up and see In Over My Head this week. We made a quick stop at the local Mineral Point grocery store and bought a bag of carrots before we headed up to the horse barn. He was standing outside eating some grass right on the fence when we arrived. Laura was excited to be able to feed him some carrots, but she didn’t have a ton of experience and I will admit that a horse can be a little bit intimidating when you aren’t used to it. Mo, who has a tendency to be a little nippy, was pretty relaxed that day. However, he wasn’t relaxed enough for Laura who ended up going 0 for 2 in attempting to give Mo a little treat. Both times she pulled her hand back as he got close and dropped the carrot on the ground. Overall, it was a decent first effort and I picked up all of the dropped carrots and fed them to Mo. I wish I would have taken a couple of pictures. Maybe next time.

Speaking of 0 for 2, Showtime Shark (aka See-knee), is no longer one nut short of a pair. He is two short. Last week, we decided to have the rather wild youngster gelded. It is far from an uncommon practice for racehorses, but you can’t help but feel a little bad for him when the procedure is first done. We found him a great farm to be turned out to about an hour from Pocono Downs. The people are extremely nice and we are confident he is getting excellent care as he just grows up a little bit. We fully think that come mid October, he will be ready to start training again and will be on his way to starting a very good career.

Back to In Over My Head for a bit. Our plan is to get his leg scanned one more time, but we are virtually certain that he is fully healed at this point. Either way, he will have another month and a half at Greg’s place before we would do anything with him, but he is getting VERY CLOSE to being able to start jogging again. The thought of that is beyond exciting for us. It has been a long six and a half months since his injury, but we can at least see the next step (and a very important one) in his overall rehab coming into focus. All of the thoughts of what can maybe happen next season on the racetrack are starting to creep back into our heads with him. You try and beat them back for fear of getting too excited, but it is very hard to do. All we can do is hope and pray that his body holds up when he comes back. If it does, we may be the happiest group owners that harness racing has ever seen.

Next, Fox Valley Nala, a 2 year old Illinois bred filly got her first lifetime win a couple of weeks ago. Marcus Miller drove her to perfection as he got her a two hole trip and patiently waited to make his move in the open stretch. She ended up winning by a nose. She has had an up and down season, but it sure was nice to see one of my horses back in the winner’s circle.

And last but not least, a big thumbs up to Danny, who is making a name for himself on the Wisconsin fair circuit as a driver this year. He is learning the ups and downs of being a driver, but has had a couple of weekends where he got horses good trips with great results (two wins and a second in three drives being a highlight). Keep it up Danny…maybe you can drive Mo in the coming years!