T-minus about a month...

The quiet doldrums of the seemingly endless time in between starts is starting to drive me crazy. It seems like a year ago that In Over My Head put up that big mile in the Junior Trendsetter at the Meadowlands as we cheered him on from South Beloit. Actually it has only been 49 days, but who’s counting. In the end, he ended up getting about a month of real R & R. Getting turned out to run around in a paddock every day and being fed like a king. Time to let his minor aliments heal. Time to let him build his strength up. Time to let him continue to mature. I took a look at the sales catalog the other day from the 2007 Lexington Select Sale and noticed that he was born on May 27, 2006, so he’s technically not even 3 yet (although all horses have the same ‘birthday’ in terms of eligibility on January 1st of each year). I always thought that May 27 was a very late foal, so I took a very unscientific poll by flipping through that pages of that sale book and marking the foal month of 50 horses. The results:

- February – 16%
- March – 28%
- April – 38%
- May – 18%

So he was a late foal, but there were more May foals in there than I expected. Anyway, none of that should really matter anymore, but since he’s not racing yet, I have analyze something. The good news is that after his time in the yard, they brought him back and he is training down nicely. They are going slow with him with a targeted of May 15th for him to qualify and kick off his 3 year old campaign. These are the times where you just wonder what he is going to be. Will his couple of races this January/ February be a springboard to something better? If so, how much? Or was that his max potential? Even if that was the case, he’d still be a nice racehorse. The key is to not set unreal expectations for the colt (although, I have to admit, the mind tends to deviate towards an unrealistic amount of winner circle pictures and victory parties).

A real key to success is to properly place him in races where he ‘fits’. We decided (rightfully so) that he is a legitimate stakes colt. As a backdrop, the high purse races that occur every year are considered ‘Stakes Races’. In order to be eligible for them, you have to make a bet. Those bets are made in February and March in the form of sustaining payments. For example, if you want your horse to be able to race at the Hayes Memorial in DuQuion on September 1st, you will need to pay $500 in February to keep him eligible. Now you know why I call it a bet. That race is expected to go for about $50,000 and when September come along, if your horse is racing well and healthy enough, you then pay another $500 as a starting fee. That’s only one race. It can really add up fast and you absolutely have to resist the urge to pay him into all the biggest events based more on hope than on reality. In the end, we kept him eligible for a number of events, including his Sire Series in Pennsylvania. Those events are great and offer a lot of bang for the buck. The way that works is that each state has a number of sires. If you have a horse whose sire stands in that state, you are eligible for their sire series (In Over My Head’s sire is I’m A Fool, who stood in Pennsylvania when he was conceived). For only $500, you can be eligible for four events that will go for approximately $40,000. If you do well, you can make the final that goes for $200,000. Good value, so we obviously paid him into that. We also picked an event down in Indianapolis and a few back in Illinois. We think we picked the right kind of events. They are the kind of events where he won’t live up to his namesake, which, of course, would be a good thing.

Speaking of names, I finally came up with a nickname for Mr. In Over My Head. In order to do so, I just wrote down the first letter in each word in his name. What do you see?

I O M H

Not much, might be the first answer. They don’t go together that well. Then I tapped into my powers of dyslexia and came up with:

Hi Mo

There you have it. His new nickname (for now) will be Mo. I’m looking forward to hollering ‘Let’s Go Mo!’ as he charges to the wire. As soon as I saw that it made me remember a time down at Balmoral Park a few years ago on a brisk fall Sunday night. I think they were racing the Sarah Meyers and as the horses came into the stretch, I saw this long haired guy in a black trench coat screaming ‘Let’s Go Mo!’ at the top of his lungs. He must have been an owner. The fans were sparse that evening, especially since it was chilly outside and his voice just carried up and down the home stretch. The horse was Fox Valley Sangamo and ‘Mo’ won that night. That guy was so happy. That is quite a feeling.

Need more proof that Mo is a good nickname? How is this for coincidence: Fox Valley Sangamo is the half brother (same dam) to none other than Westside Gritty. And the name of the writer from the Capitol Times that did that nice article on her after she won the Orange and Blue elim in track record time? Doug Moe. I think that nickname might work out just fine.