(He leaves from the #4 spot, is wearing #5 and again can easily be spotted with Marcus’s bright pink bike).
Another week and another first over victory, this time into a rainstorm on a sloppy track, with a last quarter of 26.1. We all uttered a collective ‘wow’ after that one.
After a rather auspicious start (a 5th place finish and two 7th’s), Mo has taken the last two races to pound a very important point back into our heads: he’s pretty darn good. For the umpteenth time in his career, he has followed this simple little formula: the formation of doubt + a chance to race = a clear reminder that we never should have started to doubt him in the first place.
Saturday’s race was very interesting and so much fun for us to watch and be a part of. However, it was ALMOST about 100 times more interesting…and could have been quite stressful for one Danny Carey. Danny, Mo’s unofficial owner with Greg and I/ occasional warm up driver/ operator of his Facebook page/ creator of his 3 year old highlight video, had a plan. A plan to make a very important moment in the lives of Kacy and himself a public event to be presided over by none other than In Over My Head. As some of you could probably guess, he had considered traveling down to Balmoral with Kacy with a sparkly piece of jewelry in his pocket. Once Mo took care of the field and made his way to the winners circle, Danny would then get down on one knee and propose to Kacy. Now I’ve been pretty nervous before races, but I think it is a pretty good assumption that Danny would have had butterflies in his stomach that transcend horse racing. In the end, Danny decided to pick a spot a little less public to ask for Kacy’s hand in marriage and they were already engaged by the time they hit the winners circle on Saturday night. From what I understand, Mo was rather disappointed he wasn’t able to be there for the moment, but said he really likes the ring and thinks that Danny and Kacy are a perfect couple. Not surprisingly, I agree with Mo 100%. Congrats to you two!!!
(also of note, instead of a proposal, you got to see Danny doing the Rodgers belt celebration…or the discount double check…at the end of the video above)
As for some other parts of the In Over My Head team, Greg and I had other obligations that kept us from heading down to Balmoral this week. The thing is, we never really planned for Mo to be racing this late in the year, but as they say in horse racing you don’t have a hard schedule, just a plan that will probably have to be modified. Greg was able to watch the race at home and I watched it on a computer in the back of JoJo’s Pizza in Milwaukee with Laura and her parents. Thank goodness for Wi-fi. We were there for Jamie Michalski’s birthday party (the same Jamie who is married to Larua’s brother Ryan who’s first horse race was the Windy City Pace). Jamie is a big St. Louis Cardinal’s fan and after the race, she decided that In Over My Head’s return to racing success is kind of similar to when the Cards turned things around late this summer when they were 10 or so games out of playoff contention. Given the fact they just won the World Series all I can say is that may be the best comparison I’ve ever heard!
And for you stat junkies out there, that makes 6 wins in 9 starts for Marcus and Mo. I can’t really explain why, but those two just get along quite well. I don’t think Marcus reads this little blog, but if so, thanks again for piloting In Over My Head to victory.
This win has produced another interesting question: what the heck do we do now? After nearly 3 months of thinking ‘we just have to make it to next week’, Mo has now gone out and won two straight in rather impressive fashion. He’s healthy again, he’s feeling good and appears to be as fast as he ever was. For a long time, we have hoped he could return to his old form (or something close to it) and just like that, we’re here. After talking to John this week, we’ve all decided that it is time to start thinking a little bit longer term. Not too much, but with winter approaching (or being here depending on your tolerance for cold weather), we can at least think about the next couple months and that plan is pretty simple. Mo will get to race a couple more times against a tougher bunch of horses (he has to step up on class after the 2 wins) and we’ll see how he fares. After that, it will be time for a mini break since we don’t really want to race too much in the dead of winter. So good news In Over My Head fans, you get a couple more chances to hear about his races starting a week from Saturday. I’m sure I’ll check in between now and then and in the meantime…
Let’s Go Mo!
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