Well Worth The Drive

No matter how many times we do the drive, we always get to that point.  That point is about 10 minutes south on Highway 394.  At that point, we are about two and a half hours into trip and everyone in the car is reminded of one simple fact: Madison, Wisconsin is a long ways from Balmoral Park.  Roughly fifteen minutes later, we pull into the parking lot, get out of the car, stretch and begin the walk back to the barn to see In Over My Head.  Despite the long drive, it is at that point we are reminded of another simple fact: there is no other place we’d rather be.

This familiar scenario played out this Saturday night as Laura and I headed down to watch Mo attempt to pickup back to back wins.  Due to graduation season, Mo has not had the same level of fans down at the track.  Laura and I missed last week due to her graduation (congrats Dr. Laura!) and this week Danny missed due to Kacy’s graduation (congrats Kacy!).  While I can’t provide a written report as to how things went at Maywood two weeks back, we have something even better:  video documentation!  Danny’s decision to invest in a flip camera phone is paying dividends to In Over My Head fans everywhere.  Check out his the impressive video work in the link below to get a behind the scenes look of race day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgymqqBGHXY

In his win last Friday at Maywood, Mo looked very impressive.  It was the kind of mile that reminds you just how much talent he has.  The same talent that he talked about in his interview posted here last week!  (As a side note, I got some good feedback from that “story”, so I’ll do my best to get more interviews with Mo as the season goes along…sometimes he is more talkative than others.  There are a few other stories that I’d like to bring everyone up to speed on, including a potential love story swirling around the barns in Marengo.  It seems Mo might be a little sweet on a mare that trains out there.  More on that later, so keep checking out the blog.)

Back to Saturday.  As I’ve mentioned before, there is no better way to justify five and a five and a half hour car ride than to see a victory.  We knew he was sharp and was taking on a tougher field, but in the end it was all about Mo. After getting to the half in a very slow 57.1, Mo was in a spot where he would have to close like a bleeping freight train (his words).  And that is exactly what he did.  He finally pulled even with the leader, St. David Hanover, with about a 1/16 of a mile to go and then put him away in deep stretch to get the win in 1.51.3.  His 2nd halftime was 53.3.  I’m not exactly sure how to put that into context, but just know that Mo was flying.

What was most interesting to me was what this race DIDN’T feel like.  It didn’t feel dramatic.  It didn’t feel like some sort of milestone had been accomplished.  It didn’t feel like a race where we were on pins and needles hoping he’d come out of it healthy.  It just felt…normal.  You can probably tell from my “matter of fact” entry that this wasn’t a week that was hinging on high levels of emotion.  It was just a regular race on a regular week and In Over My Head raced to his regularly high (very high) level.  And how DOES that feel you may ask?  It feels pretty damn good.

So here we sit.  It is May30th.  In Over My Head has just posted back to back wins and is feeling great.  He is getting this week off and in two week she will be back at Balmoral taking on the toughest horses in Chicago in the Invitational.  No matter what happens in that race, we have all summer and fall to watch him race.  We’ve waited so long for this and now we are finally here….and there is no other place we’d rather be.

Let’s Go Mo!