Just Short of a Win Streak...

Everything appeared to be setting up perfectly.

At the head of the stretch on Saturday night, In Over My Head had almost pulled even with the leader after coming first over. As we all sat watching on our respective TV or computer screens, we were probably thinking the same thing: roughly 27 seconds from now, Mo will be on a 3 race winning streak.

Unfortunately for us, recent history did not repeat itself this time. For awhile, it looked like In Over My Head would power past everyone, but as they hit the wire he ended up finishing 3rd. It wasn’t a bad third by any means; the two horses that beat him were tough racehorses with around $250,000 in career earnings. However, there is a feeling of invincibility that builds after a couple of impressive wins and I was definitely feeling it before the race. After sitting there for a couple of minutes after the race, all I could think was, “what happened?”

What happened could have been any number of things. He moved up in class. This was certainly a tougher bunch. He had to leave a little bit this week instead of just floating off the gate and waiting to make his move. He again came first up, which is a tough trip normally, but the strong headwind on Saturday made it tougher this week. He is generally better off one week of rest than two like he had this time. That is what it is…can’t race him every week. Lastly, maybe it just wasn’t his night for any number of reasons. I always make the point to remind people that horses are not robots. Some days they are just better than other days. It is exactly the same as a human who likes to run 5ks on the weekend. Some weekends you feel like a million bucks…some other weekends you battle to get one foot in front of the other and there isn’t always a clear cut reason why.

Regardless of what happened, he still raced well and we are excited for this Saturday which will be his last race of the season. He will be back in the same class with a similar bunch of horses. We expect him to be sharp and it would be sooooooooo cool to end our little mini season with a win.

The other positive takeaway from Saturday is it really feels we are getting back to normal now. Danny made a good point. In Over My Head has never won 3 in a row and usually doesn’t even go three real good races in a row. He is the preverbal roller coaster, which in reality is part of what makes him so special to us. Mo’s always keeping us on our toes! I wish I would have thought of that before I placed my bets on Saturday, but as they say, you win some and you lose some.

After he two recent wins, I was thinking that maybe In Over My Head was a little different this time around. Maybe he would become an ultra consistent horse that was a bit more predictable. As it turns out, we have another data point that shows New Mo is just like Old Mo and that suits us just fine.

Lets go Mo!