Alright, I’m officially excited. Last night In Over My Head made his 2nd start under our ownership. Again he had the 10 hole and was up against arguable the best in the Junior Trendsetter series, Light Up the Sky. A talented colt trained by George Teague. We knew IOMH would be better. He’d be tighter after last week’s race, but having to come from so far out yet again was probably going to be way too much against this bunch. I was hoping for a check (a top 5 finish). I didn’t yet know if he had the ability to overcome an outside post against a bunch like this. The handicapper at the Meadowlands always comments on their website about each horse in each race. “His name might say it all!” I’m sure we’ll hear that a lot this year! Danny was upset and sent him a friendly message. In the end, though, all that matters is how the horse races. Luckily for us, he raced well. Real well.
I was sitting on the bench of our JV basketball game at a rival high school. It was the 4th quarter and we had the game in hand. Our guys had played relatively well at times and managed to open up by about 25 points. With under a minute to play, I felt my phone ring. Obviously, I wasn’t going to answer it, but I had a good feeling who it was. The race probably had just gotten over and Greg and Danny were watching it live in Beloit. After our post game speech, I took a look. It was Danny and he had left a message. Should I listen to the message first…call him back right away? These are the tough decisions you face as a race horse owner who also moonlights as a volunteer basketball coach which keeps you from being able to watch the race live. I decided to listen to the message. My heart was pounding as I pushed the play button: “Colt raced huge” Danny led with…by the way, that is a favorite line. “Colt raced huge”. I love being able to say that. Anyway, the colt raced huge and took 2nd, missing a victory by literally a neck against the favorite. WOW. I thought he was kidding at first. I was half jumping up and down, grinning from ear to ear when the athletic director for the school we just beat walked by. He had kind of a sour look on his face like ‘this jerk is pretty happy about waxing our JV team’. I kind of wanted to respond with ‘it’s OK, I’m actually celebrating because of a horse race!’, but decided that maybe wasn’t the best thing to say in a high school so I instead just toned down my act and gave a nodding hello. Anyway, Danny and Greg said that if he hadn’t got locked up going into the stretch he may have won it. Once he got clear, he hit the turbo booster and started eating up ground on the favorite. “Just like that night John brushed him past the clubhouse at Maywood,” Danny said. That gave me goose bumps as I remember that very well.
After watching the varsity game I headed over to our favorite hangout with some other coaches: The Nitty Gritty on the west side of Madison. My former favorite horse carried the name of the bar “Westside Gritty” who I owned part of in the first edition of It’s A Stretch Stable. Here is a nice story about her: http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/moe/238758
We had to let her go as part of the partnership agreement, but she had remained my favorite. Luckily, IOMH has now filled that void. On the way to the restaurant, I got a chance to talk with John Butenschoen (our trainer). It is always great to talk to the trainer after a good race. As a rule, I never call the trainer after a bad race. What is there to talk about? We all know things go wrong. Nothing good comes of those conversations in my opinion. They can be discussed the next day. We have a similar rule in coaching. We don’t talk to patents of player’s right after the game. Too much emotion is often involved. The conversations are always much more productive after having 24 hours to digest the events. Anyway, we didn’t have too much to say. He raced well. We joked about our bad luck drawing the 10 hole and figured our luck had to change. That conversation was followed up with watching the Badger basketball team break their 6 game loosing streak against a good Illinois team. What a night. Two wins with the high school team, a 2nd in the Junior Trendsetter and a Badger win. I wish every day could be like that!
As soon as I got home, I fired up the computer to watch the replay. For some reason, I was kind of nervous. Not sure why…it’s not like anything is going to change on a replay. Danny and Greg had given the perfect account, so there was nothing surprising to see. As they had mentioned, we were lucky to have Andy Miller again drive him and he did a great job, as always. The one thing that stuck out, though, was the last move. The move that almost got him the win. It was literally like he kicked on the turbo boosters. I’ve been thinking that In Over My Head needs a nickname. Turbo? Sounds kind of cool…will have to discuss that with my fellow owners. Here is a link of the story from ustrotting.com:
http://www.ustrotting.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=30496
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