Today is Monday. We raced last Thursday and it took until today for me to feel like writing anything about our race. Actually, I just watched the replay for the first time last night and it was, unfortunately, exactly as Greg and Danny had described it. After the extreme excitement of our 2nd place finish in the first leg of the Junior Trendsetter, we followed it up with a hugely disappointing 7th place finish in the second leg.
What happened? We received a bad drive. That is not to say our replacement driver is a bad driver, but in the 7th race at the Meadowlands on Thursday February 12th, he drove poorly with our horse. I really don?t like to badmouth drivers. I know it is much different in the moment of the race and it is very easy to critique from the stands, but if we had Andy Miller, there is simply no way that would have happened. The new driver didn?t know our horse as well. Maybe he should have studied more; maybe we should have told him more. Either way, it doesn?t matter now. Long story short, he allowed In Over My Head to get stuck behind a 100-1 shot. As the long shot died and slowed down, virtually the entire field went past us on the outside and we were locked on the rail with no place to go. Once the world went past us, we were dead in the water. Not fun. Not fun at all.
The bright side? We made the final. Our second place finish in the 1st leg was enough to get us ranked 8th overall (top 10 make it). So despite that disappointing race, we will be going for somewhere in the vicinity of $75,000 on Saturday night and it looks like we will get Andy Miller back driving us (at least I hope so). Also, given the fact we have drawn 10, 10 and 9 we almost HAVE TO get a better draw this time. Maybe things will shape up better this time. I sure hope so. Remember how I said owning a horse is a roller coaster ride? Well, in just two races, we have got a chance to experience both great excitement and disappointment.
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