Eighty nine days ago (from when I first typed this), In Over My Head came out of the 10 hole in the $82,500 Junior Trendsetter Final at the Meadowlands. He gunned to the front, held the lead past the half and gutted out a 3rd place finish at 85-1 odds. Then we quit with him. It was a decision that was difficult, yet very simple. He never had a big break between his 2 and 3 year old seasons. He was relatively slow to mature as compared to some of his contemporaries. He needed more time and we just hoped it would pay off in the long run.
Will it pay off? Well, we just don’t know yet, but today was a step in the right direction. After getting the reports of some nice training miles, he took to the track at Pocono Downs in a qualifier this morning. John Butenschoen acted as a player/ coach (in horse racing terms, the driver/ trainer) and the results were great. He won in 1.55.1 (which is a new lifetime win mark for him) by open lengths. Sounds like he went easy on him in the stretch as he had proven all he needed to this day.
The race occurred this morning at about 10:30 and wouldn’t you know it, I had a big meeting starting at 10:00 am. It was so important that I never once thought about how the colt was doing…OK, that’s a lie, I thought about it a couple of times. Once I got back to the office, I saw the calls from John and Danny…had to be good, I thought and after barreling to my computer and pulling up ustrotting.com, I realized it was.
So what’s next? Finally time to race again! Taking a page from the book of every coach who ever lived, you need to take things one game (or race) at a time. You know where you hope to go, but can’t look ahead too much. At least we are off to a good start.
No comments:
Post a Comment