Quest Achieved
In Over My Head accomplished something special on Saturday
night. It wasn’t his game effort first
over into a headwind on a sloppy track.
It wasn’t his ‘never give up’ attitude that propelled him to a third
place finish when it appeared that he would be 5th or 6th. It was simply the fact that he finished the
race.
Why is that important?
He completed his quest.
A quest he has only completed one other time in his six year racing
career. It was a quest I laid out for
him a couple months ago…the quest for double digits.
http://inovermyheadracehorse.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-quest-for-double-digits.html
Saturday’s race was Mo’s tenth start of the season. While that may not seem like a lot to some of
the horses he races against (hats off to Major Monet and Old Man River with 36
and 35 starts this year respectively), ten is a lot for Mo. And he’s still going strong. By all accounts, he came out of the race well
and should be in next week.
Tougher Competition
Mo has no climbed to a level where he simply cannot swoop
everyone in the final stretch….and that’s just fine by me (even though he can
still swoop most). It means he’s at a
level where he is racing against the best Chicago has to offer. It’s where he belongs. While Saturday’s race was technically a
non-winners of $12,000 last five races, it was in reality an Invitational
field.
Best Man Hanover beat us again, but I still think Mo is a
better horse. Best Man was well placed
and had the jump on us at the ¾ pole. Mo
closed 3 lengths on him, but it wasn’t quite enough. Best Man was drafting behind Time To Roll,
who is a legit monster of a horse. He
could race anywhere in my opinion and if the connections just happen to be
reading this, I think you should give him a shot at the new Meadowlands!
Looking Back
This year marks the 4th anniversary of In Over My
Head’s improbable win in the Windy City Pace at odds of 55-1. I’ve covered that topic many times (probably
too many) in this blog over the years, but in thinking back I came up with an
interesting question. Do other owners/
connections remember a big win like we do?
If you think about it, dozens of races each year offer a purse of as
much or more than the Windy City did ($225,000), so in theory there are
hundreds of people that have had a part of that ‘Big Win’ experience. Do they reflect back every year and remember
how incredible that feeling was like we do?
I’m guessing that we take it to more of an extreme for a
number of reasons. It was so improbable
(sometime if you win as a favorite, you almost feel as much relief as pure
excitement). He was our only horse and
we’ve never come close to repeating that victory in the 4 years since. The next biggest race he was in (from a pure
purse perspective) was the final of the Exit 16W series at the Meadowlands that
went for $88,000. He finished 7th
and shredded his leg that night. That is
probably another reason why we hang on so tightly to our one big time win. There is nothing else to get in its way.
The only personal comparison I can make was from my time as
a coach at Madison Memorial High School.
Over 8 years we won three state titles and were runner up four
times. That’s a lot of success and lots
of memorable games. I can say that I
often do think back to the biggest wins and love talking about them with other
people who were involved. I can’t say
that they are any less special just because we had more of them (as opposed to
the one major win with Mo). Certain wins
will always mean more for any number of reasons and I think if I coached
another 50 years, nothing would ever top this:
Regardless of the reasons why, we will probably relive that
for many more years. Thanks to Danny, it
was captured beautifully with the 3rd portion of his 3 year old highlight
video. Enjoy:
Looking Ahead
Look for Mo to race again next week either in the same class
or in the Invitational. It just depends
on who enters and how Balmoral shakes out the fields.
It’s been a great run so far in 2013 and we hope to keep it
going. Let’s Go Mo!
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