Happy Holiday's (and looking forward to next year)

Tis the season for lots of things. Presents, family gatherings, Christmas parties (and hangovers) and holiday cards. Some are simple…a card with a signature. Some have pictures (Greg’s family card included a picture of In Over My Head, which was awesome) and some have page long updates of what the family has been up to all year. I always enjoy reading those to keep up with friends and relatives, especially those I don’t get to see a lot. What I really appreciate are the brutally honest ones that let everyone know that the year has not gone particularly well. I think we could have written one of those talking about our horses this year. Just for fun, I’m going to give it a shot.

I hope that this letter finds you well. We are limping toward the end of what has turned out to be a rather challenging year in 2010. We started out with high expectations and ended with a couple of busted up horses and a pile of vet bills.

In Over My Head began the year giving us hope that 2010 would be a very special year. A year in which we could watch our champion horse in many big races and that champion would allow us to grow our stable. He won his first two races against solid competition out at the Meadowlands and was the favorite in the final of a mini series. Unfortunately, he finished 8th and after two agonizing weeks of analysis, we found out he had a torn suspensory ligament, which is a career threatening injury. After enough stall rest to allow him to be mobile again, we brought him back to the Midwest to rest.

In early summer, our hopes turned to Showtime Shark (aka, See-knee), a talented 2 year old who had trained town effortlessly and was ready to qualify and get to the track. We figured he would allow us to forget about the sad story of In Over My Head at least for awhile. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. He was impeded in his first qualifier, but stayed flat and finished well. He was then impeded again in his 2nd qualifier and had to make a sharp turn around the breaker. While somehow managing to come home in 27.0 despite the detour, he jammed himself up pretty good. Between that and some general growing pains, we had to quit with him before he made his first start.

Late fall brought new hope for us, as In Over My Head was finally able to leave the paddock and get back onto the track down in Florida. Despite being rather overweight, he loved to be back on the track. With John B. down in Florida, we sent Showtime Shark over to the Julie Miller stable after a few months off. He came back sound and without soreness, which was very encouraging. He was trained down to 2:23 and we were just a few weeks away from his first start and making a run at the Junior Trendsetter at the Meadowlands. Not so fast. He was dead lame one morning when they went to get him out of his stall and it turns out he broke his back right coffin bone by kicking the stall too hard. You might think that broken bones from kicking stalls is rather rare. You’d be right, so we have that going for us. He’ll be out until about August.

Lastly, we had what we hope is only a scare last week when In Over My Head’s once injured leg started to swell up again. Could be nothing, could be something. We’ll find out soon enough.

Merry Christmas to you and your family

Team In Over My Head

Well, there you have it. Our brutally honest Christmas card for 2010. This doesn’t even take into account other challenges outside of racing that have arisen, some small and some large. I’ve often heard people say that in life, you have to go through the hard times to really appreciate the good times. 2010 was no doubt hard. I remember thinking in early 2010 when In Over My Head came out winning that it was almost too good to be true. Well, apparently it was. Despite all of this, it has only brought us closer together. Even though we currently have two horses, and only one is about half healthy, I have a feeling good things are on the horizon. We continue to find ways to laugh and joke about the recent hurdles and if we can laugh now, just think how much fun we will have when happy days are here again.