When In Over My Head turned for home last Saturday night in the $18,000 Free For All at Balmoral Park, I think we all had high hopes. We had seen this mile before: he aggressively leaves from a bad post position (#8 that night) and fires toward the front. He found an opening behind one of the favorites (Booze Cruzin) and patiently raced in 2nd place for the next half mile. In the past, the next step would be for Mo to put together his usual gutty stretch run. Working his way toward the leader, sometimes getting up for the win, but always racing competitively toward the end. As the horses were in between the three quarter and seven eighths pole that night we saw something for the first time ever with In Over My Head. He began to fade. Instead of being the passer, he was the passee and when he finally crossed the wire, he was finished last.
For the first couple of seconds, I didn’t even know how to react. I just kind of stared blankly at the TV screen. Then reality set in. Something had to be wrong. He had to be sick or had some other issues in his lungs. Maybe he was hurt. Not horribly hurt, but hurt enough that it showed up at the end of the race. Questions, questions and more questions. The problem was we had no answers, which is why I waited to add this entry to the blog. As of today, we think we have used our CSI skills to piece together what went wrong.
The biggest issue here is the timing. This race was suppose to be our final tune up before entering into the $300,000 American Nationals against some of the finest 3 year old colts in the country. When we sent in our sustaining payments last March (you need to make payments in the spring just to stay eligible for these races), we identified the American National as well as the $250,000 Windy City Pace as our ‘slot machine’ stakes. Maybe not the best odds, but if you get a little lucky, it will be real big. Before last Saturday, we thought that In Over My Head was in prime form to take on his stiffest competition yet. However, watching him fade in the stretch threw us for a complete loop.
Step once was to scope him after the race. This checked for issues in his lungs or sickness. They actually have a rating system based on mucus buildup and such on a scale of 1-10. The results were good: he showed no signs of sickness at all. Next step was to draw blood and have a vet go over his blood work. Again, nothing there. Step three was for the vet to give him an overall general check: check his feet, legs, joints and so on. Again, nothing was found. After all of that testing we were really only able to figure out a couple of potential problems. First, the inclement weather caused a couple of issues last week. He was unable to spend time out playing in the paddock because it was nothing more than a soupy mud pit. More time in the stall can lead to more stress. Stress often times manifests itself in the stomach (this also is the case in humans of course). He had showed signs of stomach issues that week (either stress based or potentially general digestive duress). Second, he could not train on his normal schedule due to the weather, so instead of training on Tuesday or Wednesday, he was forced to train on Thursday. There is a chance that the work was too close to the race and left him somewhat leg weary at the end of the race.
If you put all of those things together, we think his clunker of a race can be explained. The good news is that he is back to a normal regimen and schedule. Also, we are treating his stomach issues. He trained well yesterday and seems to already be back to his normal self, which is wonderful.
With that, we have a very large decision to make. Do we enter into the American National or not? We can’t race Mo this weekend as he needs a little more time to recoup, but we do expect him to be 100% by Monday. So what should we do? The entry fee is about $3,000. He will be up against a monster group of horses. Having that said, when he is right, there is no doubt in my mind he can race with that group. We have a lot to think about. We have until next Tuesday to decide.
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