The Fight

This post is based on a true story.  Part of have been embellished and parts of just been created.  Since I wasn't there when it happened, I had to take some liberties.

The world is so big when you are young, especially if your entire world can be contained in a single fenced enclosure in a small town.  The world certainly felt big for three young horses named As Fast As You ("Fast"), Prince A Insta ("Prince"), Going For Broke ("Broke").  They ran in a pack with some others, but they mostly kept to their small group.

Interestingly enough, all three of the colts were brothers. Half brothers to be exact, but they all had the same father.  He wasn't a father that looked after them, but he was a father that looked out over them.  They called him the Stallion.  He loomed large both in stature and by the fact the field that he ran in was up a gently sloping hill from where the youngsters spent their days.  From their perspective, the Stallion seemed like a giant.

The Stallion's home was just on the other side of a simple fence.  He was unlike many other stallions of his breed.  He was highly intelligent and generally very kind.  The farmers had let him live next to the yearlings for months and have never had any issues.  They would occasionally holler back and forth, but it was clear who was boss.  He was supremely confident in his new role just as he was on the racetrack.  He didn't feel there was any reason to physically exert his dominance over the young horses.

The three horses had very different personalities.  Broke was the loudest and and fancied himself as the leader of the pack.  Fast was the quiet confident type.  He didn't often lead the pack and many times just went with the flow.  When he did speak, however, his friends would listen and even the boisterous leader would back down and go along with him.  Prince was the jokester of the group.  He was usually found in the back and the others enjoyed having him around.

The young horses and the Stallion lived their separate lives, right next to each other for months.  The three brothers would often talk about what they would do if the Stallion broke through the fence and came after them.

"I'd stand right up to him," said Broke.  "He isn't all that tough.  I bet I could stare him down and he'd just walk away."

Prince just laughed, "Sure you would tough guy.  You're all talk...you'd turn tail and run if the Stallion even came close to the fence!  At least I'll admit what I'd do.  I'd be up over the hill and screaming for my life trying to hide behind anything I could find!"

Fast stood there silent.  "What would you do Fast?" Broke finally asked.

"I guess I don't know for sure.  I'd like to think there is a chance he'd want to talk to me, but if he broke through the fence he probably wouldn't be in the mood to talk.  To be honest, if he went through the trouble of busting through the fence to come after us, I'd be pretty ticked off.  We're just a couple of yearlings.  We don't pose him any threat.  Maybe I'd tell him to leave us alone."

"Make sure you say it loud so I can hear you from over the hill," said Prince and the group all had a good laugh.

Days went by and very little changed.  The colts got a little bit bigger and they continued to live their lives with the Stallion watching over them.

It all changed one very hot and humid summer day.  No breeze.  The air literally felt heavy.  With the summer sun beating down on the dark coated colts, their moods were sour.  They were uncomfortable and unhappy.  The same attitude was also afflicting the Stallion. The normally calm horse was clearly on edge.  Running the fence line and staring at the young colts.  He'd then go back to his barn, but not long after, he'd be back.  Fast, Prince and Broke were on edge.

"What's wrong with him today?" Broke asked.  "He's really starting to freak me out.  He's ran that fence and look at us before, but not like this.  I think we need to just back off."

"Wait a second...I thought you were getting ready to stand up to him?  Next time he comes down you should run the fence with him and see who's faster," taunted Prince.

In the time that it took for the three horses to look at each other and share a laugh, the Stallion was back at the fence, but this time he wasn't running the fence line.  He ran right through it.  For the first time in there lives, there was nothing between them and the Stallion. 

The muscular Stallion towered over the young horses and his presence triggered the most natural reaction a horse has for both Broke and Prince.  They turned and ran as fast as they could.  They assumed the Fast was right behind them, but when they got clear and looked back, their hearts sank.   
What they saw appeared to be the biggest mismatch since David took on Goliath.  Fast was standing face to face with the Stallion.  The move surprised the Stallion and he didn't make a move right away.  Then, sensing that the young horse was actually contemplating a challenge and pounded his front hooves on the ground.

"Get out of there Fast!" his brothers yelled, but Fast didn't move.  He stood there, half in awe and half in defiance of the Stallion.

It was then that the Stallion let out one final warning blast and stood on his hind legs.

Fast whinnied back.  His voice sounding pathetically weak compared to that of the Stallion.  For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to back down.  He was mad.  The Stallion had no business bothering them.  He was just in a bad mood, but so was Fast.

A feeling of panic began washing over his brothers bothers as stood as statues just 50 feet away.

"The Stallion's going to kill him," Broke softly muttered.

Fast's could hear the farmers yelling and could see them running out of the corner of his eye toward the site of the standoff, but he knew there were too far away to stop this.  He would never strike first and it was going to be up to the Stallion to decide if this was going to go from a standoff to a live battle.  As the Stallion reared up again, Fast knew that he was past the point of rescue.

He felt the first blow his his side, but everything after that was a blur.  He knew there was more blows and bites but it wasn't until a front hoof came crashing down on his stifle that the real pain set in.  He tried to fight back, but to an outside observer it may have appeared that he wasn't trying at all.  It was all happening so quickly and he was woefully in over his head.

At last, the farmers arrived and grabbed the Stallion before he could do any further damage to his young offspring.  As he stood there trying to asses how bad he was beaten up, he caught the Stallion's eye.  He gingerly turned to face him, nursing his injured back leg.

"You would have done the same thing when you were a kid, Stallion.  You would have stood your ground."

The anger in the Stallion's face faded and a was replaced by a wry smile.  His eyes narrowed as he looked at his offspring with a tinge of respect.  "That's exactly what I would have done."

Let's hope that our little Fast carries the same level of toughness that his father had.  If he does, we may be in for a fun ride.

Riding in Style

I’m not sure I have this story 100% correct, but from what I’ve been able to gather this is pretty close. 

The year was probably around 1965 and the hot streak was continuing for my grandpa in the horse business.  Starting in the late 1950s he had hit on a couple of real nice horses, but now he had gone from good to great with his grand circuit star Speedy Rodney.  As the purse money flowed in, he did what anyone would have done in those times.  He went out and bought a Cadillac.  It may have been gold, but I can’t confirm that.  

From that day forward, he always owned a Cadillac.  Fourteen of them to be exact with the last one being purchased in 2005.  Grandpa died in 2012 and Grandma has driven it ever since, but as of this year she didn’t have a need for a car anymore.  The plan was to sell it and my mom asked if I was interested.  At first, it didn’t seem very logical.  We didn’t need it.  We only have a 2-car garage.  However, as is the case with many things horse racing related, sometimes you have to look beyond basic logic to determine the right choice.

After throwing logic to the wolves, I am happy to say that Grandpa and Grandma’s last Cadillac has found a nice new home…in my garage.  My everyday car has been demoted to the driveway.  It is the unofficial ‘company car’ of the In Over My Head Stable.  Danny and I have yet to take it to a race, but the plan is to drive it to Lexington this fall.  It needs a little bit of work, but overall is in great shape and is physical reminder of Grandpa and his ties back to the first very first Cadillac he bought when his racing stable was hotter than a two-dollar pistol. 

Maybe the new Caddy will be our good luck charm.  It sure started out well.  After we bought it, Southern Flight went win, win, second.  He’s gone a couple of bad races, but that is just to do some sickness he has been fighting through…not even a good luck charm can hold off sickness.  I’m expecting good things in the near future with Flight and hopefully that luck carries over to our 2-year-old trotter named Darty that John Butenschoen (the master of young trotters) has out in Pennsylvania.

The other trip that I’m excited to take in the Cadillac is down to see As Fast As You.  We haven’t seen him in a while, but Lesa has told us he is growing up well and looks great (apparently all the In Over Head yearlings look great).  It is crazy to think that at this time next year, we will see his first crop getting to the racetrack and hopefully having some success.  And hopefully As Fast As You is the best of the bunch! 

We haven’t been real active on the updates here, but I think that will change in the coming months.  This whole thing started with us buying In Over My Head and now that his baby boy is getting closer to moving from a field to a jog cart, it will be fun to track that progress.  No matter what happens, it is nice to know that the next time we take a road trip, we will be riding in style and I’m sure Grandpa will be riding with us in spirit.

In Over My Head: Horse, Sire and now a Stable

Earlier this week I took a look at the stats for this In Over My Head blog webpage and noticed that it had just under 100 page views in the last week.  This happens periodically.  My assumption is that someone finds the page and reads the story from start to finish.  It is kind of crazy to think that it was nine years ago this Monday that Greg, Danny and I traveled to New Jersey and bought In Over My Head out of the Meadowlands sale.  He’s changed the trajectory of our lives in some ways and given the fact that people are still finding this page and reading the story, I thought I’d give a couple of updates.  The story of In Over My Head continues to live on in a couple of different ways.

As Fast As You in the foreground with his half brother

His Offspring

Our dream of seeing In Over My Head as a sire has taken off beyond what we thought was possible and this is really due to the outstanding care and focus of his current owner Lesa Peters.  Lesa has done a fantastic job promoting Mo throughout the Minnesota and Iowa circuit and through 2017 and two breeding seasons he has bred over 30 mares.  He has nearly a 100% success rate in getting mares in foal (at-a-boy Mo), which I think has really helped him and should continue to as he enters his 3^rd breeding season.  His oldest are yearlings this year and they look fantastic.  I know I’m biased, but it is a fact that his offspring look the part of a Grand Circuit horse.  He is a striking individual and he is passing that off to the next generation.  A year from now, we will start thinking about how they will fare on the racetrack, which is going to be fantastic to watch.

Our little In Over My Head (As Fast As You) is doing great and is also under the wonderful care of Lesa down in Iowa.  I have included an updated picture from just before Christmas and he is clearly starting to grow into himself.  Our plan is to get down to see him again in the spring.

Our Stable

Sometimes in life, a frustrating situation can lead to a new opportunity and that is exactly what happened this fall.  While we failed to get ourselves a horse down in Springfield last September (as mentioned in the last post), we did meet what tuned out to be our future co-owner in Jeff Davis of Dandy Farms.  Since then, we’ve picked up a couple of racehorses with him in the Indiana bred Southern Flight and OMG Hanover.  Both are off to a great start for us and have been fun to watch race.  We also were fortunate to get part of another yearling with John Butenschoen down in Lexington.  So after a couple years of struggling to get some new horses, the cup suddenly run-eth over! 

After picking up these new horses Danny and I decided to form a new stable to own them, but our biggest hang-up was the name.  Swenson Carey Stable?  Do we use initials?  Come up with something else?  It was on our trip back from Lexington that it hit us square in the face…we need to be named “In Over My Head Stable”.  What better way to carry on the story of Mo than to use his name on every horse that we plan to ever own.  So, if you even see “In Over My Head Stable” down as an owner, you can know that it ties back to us.