Strange Happenings Are Back

I’m a big fan of the movie The Matrix. I found the two sequals to were focused on the ever deepening story and special effects, but the original that was just close enough to real life (at least in the beginning of the movie) to make it feel more real. One part of the movie that sicks with me is when Neo sees a cat cross a doorway not once, but twice. He blew it off as déjà-vu, but in the land of human vs. machine, it is not déjà-vu. It is a glitch in the Matrix that can mean impending danger. Why bring up an obscure scene from a 90s movie in a horse blog you ask? Just to point out that often times things go on around us that we don’t notice. It may or not mean something. Call it a coincidence, a fluke, maybe some sort of impending fate or maybe nothing at all, but sometimes things happen that simply make you go hmmmmmm…

Now, this used to happen all the time two years ago with Mo. It seemed like every race something would happen that made us scratch our heads or pause and wonder if something bigger than us was pulling the strings on the puppets around us. I’d refer you back to some specific blog post, but I just realized how long this thing has become. Sixty-eight posts over three years. Where the hell did I find the time to write all of this??? Don’t ask my boss that question. At some point I’ll sit down read this thing start to finish, but I might as well wait until our run with Mo is over (hopefully 4 or so years from now).

Anyway, we went down to watch Seanie race on Wednesday night. It was his 3rd lifetime start in a non- winners of 2 race going for $11,000. We were tense as usually, but not off the charts. We had a nice crew down at Beloit including Greg, Danny, his friend Aaron, my friend Schlitz and myself. Now, for the record, we haven’t had any of those ‘hmmmmm’ moments in quite awhile. I honestly can’t remember the last one (guess I can go back and read the blog!), but things were different last night. Consider the following:

• The Meadows racetrack was on a TV near us and we could head the great Roger Huston’s race calls. It reminded Danny and I about the time we went down there to see Mo race his 3 year old year. We had a great time. Mo finished 2nd that day after brushing to the front and not quite being able to get up to the eventual winner, Upfront Hoosierboy.

• Our driver that night was Doug Snyder, a regular driver at the Meadows. He was great that night…not so much later on in the year as we still joke about.

• In the race before Seanie’s Wednesday night, Greg pointed out that none other than Doug Snyder was driving. Kind of strange as he only had TWO drives at Pocono ALL YEAR and both were that night. His other 192 drives were all at the Meadows.

• About 5 minutes before the start of our race, Danny gave me a look like he was half spooked. “Listen to the song,” he said. I couldn’t hear it. It was the background song that Pocono Downs feed had going on in between races. He turned it up: “Over My Head” by the Frey. It is a song that will forever make us think of In Over My Head (obviously). That was a little more than a hmmmm moment for me. Not ‘make the hair on your arms stand up’ either, but somewhere in between. Popular song, I though, but rather interesting timing.

• So the race starts and Seanie leaves out of the 5 hole for the top (as you could probably guess by now, Mo had the 5 hole that day at the Meadows and went right to the top). He sits behind the leader the whole race and couldn’t get to him in the stretch, finishing 2nd by about 2 lengths and besting the 3rd place horse by even more than that. Mo finished 2nd by about 2 lengths and bested the 3rd place horse by more than that as well.

• Now the times weren’t a spot on match: Seanie was in 1.53.3 and Mo was in 1.52.4 that day, but since the Pocono track was about a second off last night due to sloppy conditions, that’s pretty damn close.

Now doesn’t all that strike you as at least a little strange? I think it does, but have absolutely no idea what it means. Does it mean that Seanie is going to take a similar arc to success as Mo? Does it mean that all these subtle references to Mo mean he will be back soon? Is it just a way to remember him and that great year he had? Those questions can only be answered in time, but there has to be something there. This whole blog started on a hunch…a feeling that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but for whatever reason I felt totally compelled to start tracking a story that at the time had yielded nothing more than a 5th place finish in a nw2 by a horse we had just dropped $28,000 on. Since then we have experienced completely unexpected highs (like what we never even imagined highs) and utterly devastating lows (like it was almost time to close up shop lows). And during all those times, these strange little occurrences kept happening. Maybe we were looking so hard for them that we kind of created something out of nothing. On the other hand maybe we just became a little more aware because of the excitement and camaraderie that we felt following our four legged friends.

So I’m going to end this post with another hunch. This thing isn’t over. Far from it. I’m telling you I woke up Thursday morning absolutely jacked about the race. It was just a second place finish…we picked up about $2,500…so what??? Well, just call it another hunch. I don’t know exactly what form it will take, but I think we are heading back up. Seanie will continue to get better and keep the fire burning until the Champ returns. That’s when this thing can really take off….it will be like déjà-vu all over again.

Had to add this special addition to my own post since I finished it yesterday…I was thinking a lot about Mo this afternoon after talking to Tyler Butenschoen on the way home.. I was just feeling so much confidence that things were going to be OK….that he WILL be back like he was before and that our ride is about to take off again. So I get home and decide to go for a run. About 3 miles into it, I come up to a rather long hill, which was a little bit intimidating. At about the same time, my Ipod finished up one song and started another. The song?

“Over My Head” by the Frey.

I can’t make this stuff up. Let’s go Mo!