At Long Last...It is Time to Qualify

We’ve been thinking a lot about In Over My Head the last couple of days due to the expectation that he is going to qualify tomorrow at Balmoral Park. We were excited when the time finally came to get into usta.com to see the entries. My plan for this little blog was to pull up the entries, see his name and assume something profound would just come to me and I’d start writing. However, the opposite happened.

Danny actually scooped me on this one (it is always a race to see who can find the official entries first) and let me know via a text message that he was in fact listed in a qualifier. I raced back to my desk to see it for my own eyes and when I did, I was totally speechless. It was boarderline emotional to see him listed down in that qualifying race. It had been 579 days since he last raced and there was “In Over My Head”. I just stared at it for awhile. In some ways, it was more special than when we saw his name in the entries of his biggest races. It didn't matter that it was just a regular qualifying race on a Wednesday morning at Balmoral.

You can see it for yourself. Click on the link and just type in "In Over My Head"

http://racing.ustrotting.com/

Outside of this really cool sense of accomplishment for In Over My Head and everyone involved that has worked so hard to get him back, there is another feeling that has set in: fear. I am totally freaked out. It has just become very real…we are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO close to have him back racing again and we all know that it also could end tomorrow.

By the time you read this, the race will probably be over. Marcus Miller is driving him and hopefully he will come back to the barn with good news that he felt great and finished the mile strong. He was a little bit sore afterward, but nothing too bad and seemingly nothing the Butenschoen’s and Dr. Tony can’t work with. Or…he could come back and say it went poorly and that is obviously hurting…maybe too much to go on with him. Which one will it be? We really have no idea. We just have to listen to Mo. He’ll let us know if he can keep going. And if the answer is ‘yes’, we’ll have at least one more week of anxiously awaiting entries, more talk of how he still has it and more hope he can regain his old form. One week at a time...I sure hope we get at least one more week. Let’s go Mo!