I apologize for the slow uptake on the blog entry, but the last week has been filled with good times, new friends and even some polka music. Last Saturday, I attended the wedding of Laura’s brother Ryan and his new bride Jamie in St. Louis. It was a great day and everything went off perfectly. I even got to drive around some family relatives including Laura’s grandpa, who, wouldn’t you know it, is a harness racing fan! What are the odds of that? Not surprisingly, In Over My Head was making his return to the track after the last debacle (that led to the 5 Worst Experiences post) on Saturday night. So, I was obviously not going to watch the race. We had entered him in a non-winner of 4 races at The Meadowlands in New Jersey that went for a purse of $18,000. Not too shabby. This would be his first trip back at ‘The Big M’ since his huge 3rd place finish in the Junior Trendsetter Final last February. There is something very cool about being able to enter your horse to race at The Big M on a Saturday night. Although competition has increased at other tracks out east, it remains the première track in North America and being able to send a horse up there has kind of a feeling of pride to it. That pride can obviously disappear quickly if you don’t race well. Luckily for us, Mr. Mo did a good job in helping us forget the pain of the prior race.
Saturday night’s race marked the 5th time Mo has raced at The Meadowlands since we owned him. I love racing there, but I’ve only been able to watch him live once. Previously, I’ve missed races for a work conference in Phoenix, two basketball games and now a wedding. That’s the thing about owning a horse. It is so much fun to watch them (especially live at the track), but sometimes it just doesn’t work. Luckily for me, Greg and Danny were down at the usual spot in South Beloit and the plan was for Danny to give me text updates as they became available. I remember when the first one buzzed my phone. The problem was I couldn’t look at it. We were still in the middle of dinner and I didn’t want to be distracted. Of course, the text made me think. I thought back to the break he made in the Pennsylvania Sire Series on July 16th, I thought back to all the breaks he made as a 2 year old. What happens if he did it again? Another last place finish? What would we do? Maybe he was hurt after all. The fun of the wedding was able to push those thoughts out of my head until about 15 minutes later when the next text buzz occurred. Five minutes later, there was another one. At this point, dinner was winding down and my mind was racing (no pun indented). It was time to take a peak at my phone. My heart rate went up a few notches as I pulled up the texts. The first just said ‘about 15 minutes to post time’…guess I could have read that one when I got it. The next one carried the important message: ‘3rd raced good’. Whew…what a relief. And that’s what it was, a relief. This race wasn’t about celebrating or even hoping for a win. It was about making sure that In Over My Head was still healthy, still strong and still the racehorse we hoped he was. It turns out he just missed 2nd place (by a neck). He reminded us why we think so much of him.
Mo proved to us that he belongs amongst the top 3 year olds. Not the upper crust, but the next tier. He can complete and rack up top 3 finishes. The horses he raced against on Saturday night were virtually all 2nd tier stakes horses. Now, after being knocked out of contention in the Pennsylvania Sire Series due to nothing more than a fluke race in which he was tipped out too soon, we have formulated our backup plan. It is a plan that was validated by his competitive race on Saturday. Although a Plan B, the new plan hopefully will end up being a lot of fun as it will include a trip back to the Land of Lincoln (a place Mo hasn’t raced since that sad Thursday night last October talked about early in the blog). We will take him down to Springfield and Duquion to race in the 3 year old open events going for $30,000 - $40,000. I think he’ll be competitive and the cool thing is we can ditch South Beloit and go watch him race live. One more race next week out east first before he ships home. Heres to hoping the new plan actually turns out better than the old one.
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