Overview

Many people have asked me what it's like to own a racehorse. This blog is a play by play of one horse in particular. A three year old colt named In Over My Head that I own with my uncle...and although he doesn't have any dollars invested, my cousin is about as emotionally invested as humanly possible. It could end up being a story of success or failure, but if he's like all the others I've owned, it will no doubt be a roller coaster ride.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Two Dollar Bill

Flash back to Friday, November 26th, 2010 at Crocus restaurant on the south side of Milwaukee. We were enjoying a nice traditional Polish meal with Laura and her extended family. Laura and I were seated at a table of folks that included her Uncle Justin and Aunt Lori. We were having a great time talking about this and that when Justin asked, ‘how are the horses doing?”

To any horse owner, that can be either a really good question or a difficult question. At this point, it was kind of difficult. In Over My Head was still a long ways away from doing anything other than jogging. Seanie was starting to train down some, but an actual race was off on the distant horizon. Despite the lack of any real good news, I gave Justin the run down on what was going on. At the end, he reached into his wallet and said ‘guess what I have?’ My first thought was maybe enough to pay our most recent vet bill. All jokes aside, Justin pulled out a $2 bill. Rather rare in today’s standard circulation of money, but Justin knew that the lowest and most well known horse bet is $2. Even though we were an unknown months away from a race at that point, Justin gave me the $2 bill and we agreed that I would put it down as a win bet on the first night that In Over My Head raced…even though there were no guaranty that day would ever come.

That $2 bill has sat on my desk at home in our bedroom, next to an engagement picture of Laura and I. Every morning when I’d grab my keys and wallet, I’d take a look at it and wonder when the time would finally come that we could use it...

Flash back to reality: Mo is entered to race on Saturday. I’ll go ahead and repeat that for effect…Mo is entered to race on Saturday. He is in a conditioned race against a rather tough bunch and he drew an outside post (#8). He had a good qualifier last week, but in looking at how this race has gone in recent weeks, Mo is going to have to go maybe as much as 2 seconds faster or more to win the race. I’m not sure how many people will be betting their hard earned money on him, but I can guaranty that he will have at least $2 down on him to win…compliments of Uncle Justin.

Stay tuned for more updates…this is shaping up to be the most exciting racing week we’ve had in a long, long time!

0 comments:

Post a Comment