We never knew how or when
this ride with In Over My Head would end.
I always assumed it would end when we decided to move on from harness
racing. It was starting to seem like our
time with In Over My Head was going to be our peak. While we continued to enjoy the sport, we would
never ascend back to that level of success and excitement. Mo would always be our one and only go to
story to share with people that asked about our time in racing. After all, we are as small time as it gets in
this game.
The amount of strings that have
come tied together in the past few weeks is amazing. The story of In Over My Head has tied itself
into a nice little bow.
The central character in this
story is In Over My Head himself. After spending three years as a
stallion at Lesa Peter's farm in Iowa, she decided to move on from him. While he had produced a couple of decent
horses, it wasn’t enough to keep breeders interested. He was recently
moved to his new home in Virginia to live on a farm and breed riding horses. We will forever be thankful that Lesa gave
him a chance to succeed.
Two weeks before that, the one
offspring we bred from In Over My Head (and maybe the only horse we will ever breed!),
ended his racing career and began a new one as a riding horse (thanks
Kim). He will lead a great new life, but I had really struggled accepting
that the dream of a 'Mo clone' fell flat. He was a failure as a
racehorse. It took nearly 3 years to realize that dream was simply
wishful thinking and it stung every time I came across something that reminded
me of In Over My Head...an old tee-shirt, wristband, program or whatever else
we had saved over the years. I certainly wasn't interested in finishing
up this blog and in reality, I was ready to take it down.
For whatever reason, I had begun
to accept that portion of our life was over. Greg was no longer with us
(it will be 5 years in November), In Over My Head is no longer a stallion to
racehorses, our own offspring was done. Some of the key places from the
story are gone. The family lumber yard was torn down last year.
Maywood Park, the place of our greatest achievement, was torn down last year as
well. All that was left were pictures, race replays and memories. It was the morning of Saturday September 12th
that all of this kind of began to move from painful to acceptable. It was
time to let go. That doesn't mean forget, but to not hold on so tight to
the point that it is holding you down. It was time to accept the fact
that the next adventure can't really begin until you let go of the past one and
that what Danny and I had to do.
People have often told us that our story of In Over My Head is like a movie, so I began to envision an ending scene of our movie. It had to be a bit bittersweet and accompanied by some melancholy music. Reminiscing about what happened but hopeful about what lies ahead. As a basketball junkie, I naturally envision the closing scene in Hoosiers. The coach’s voice still echoes off the cinder block walls as the camera closes in on the championship team picture that hangs on the wall of the gym as a young kid pounds the ball onto the hardwood floor, heaving it toward the hoop that is too tall for him. The gym is silent except for the old coach’s voice before the ball slams back to the ground. The story is over, but the new generation hopes to recreate successes of the past.
The comparisons for us a very
similar. The pictures will always hang
on the walls. The replays will always be watched and remembered.
Some of the horses, people and places involved remain, but others are no longer
with us or have moved onto something else. The excitement, sadness,
jubilation and despair will forever live with the story of In Over My Head and
they will be shared with future generations and hung onto just like past
stories from the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s still are held tightly by Danny, his
sister Kim, my brother Kirk, myself and others.
This is where the movie is
supposed to fade to black. Coach’s voice
softly floats away as does the sound of the bouncing ball. As it turns out, not all movies end the same…
On the evening of September 12th,
with our entire families in the room, Danny and I had another experience of a lifetime
when Blank Stare won the New York Sires Series championship. He was not a
long shot like In Over My Head, but we knew he would need some race luck to
have a chance. His winning trip and winning time, 1.52.2, were replicas
of Mo’s win the 2009 Windy City Pace. The track, Yonkers Raceway, was the
site of Grandpa's biggest wins with Speedy Rodney, including the Goshen Trot
and United Nations Trot in the mid-1960s. It was almost as if fate was
tipping its cap to the past and also letting us know it was our time to take
the reins.
The story with In Over My Head
was something that we hung onto for over 10 years. Let’s hope this new one will last that long,
let’s hope our kids get more into it (I’m sure they will) and let’s hope we
eventually make some better wardrobe selections. We like this ending much more than just fading
to black:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4BWp_9oCt0
