It is amazing just how nerve-wrecking this can be and the nerves don't just kick in for the actual race. Today was a good example of that. At 9am this morning, they drew for the fields in the 1st leg of the Pennsylvania Sire Series to be held at The Meadows racetrack near Pittsburgh this Thursday. They way they do it in the series is to draw even groups of horses. So, if 48 horses enter, you end up with 6 divisional races with 8 horses in each. As you could imagine, there can be a rather large difference in talent depending on where you draw.
There are a number of horses in this event with gaudy winning marks and eye popping earnings on the year including:
- Johnny Z: $176,000 in earnings
- Rusty's All In: $99,000
- Artists Rally: $90,000
- Dan Carter: $50,000 and a mark of 1.50.3
So back to the draw. It was completed with morning starting at about 9am and then it is a waiting game to see when it gets posted on the ustrotting.com website. I went into the 'entries' section and kept hitting refresh until it finally came up at about 1pm. I had a rock in my gut and slowing scrolled down revealing one division after another. When I got to the 8th race, I saw our colt nicely situation in the #5 post position and all of the big names above were not going to be joining him in Thursdays race. Whew.
At the end of the day, you never want to be in over your head (pun intended). You want to ‘fit’ the group you are racing against. That doesn’t mean you will win, but it simply means that if you are feeling right, you can complete. At first glace, I think Mo can compete with this group. This group is not easy (no PASS event ever will be), but again, I think he can compete. That’s all an owner can ask.
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