A Different Kind of Waiting

We have the group. We have the money. We have the trainer. We have the horse. Time to roll, right? Well...almost. A few months ago I wrote about waiting for the right horse to come along and how agonizing the wait is. And it was. Now we have the Fiz. He came to us sound and in good condition. He has recently won races at higher levels than we claimed him at and is in good form. So why the wait now?

We want to run Fiz over a route of ground at about the $16,000 claiming level, preferably on the turf. As a reader of this blog and friend of mine commented a few months back, "This place (Tampa) is lousy with $16,000 grass horses right now." And that is our problem. Not so much the quantity, but because Fiz has run under that level, he is least preferred when it comes to entering a race. Because they'll be 20 or so entrants for each race, preferences count and Fiz falls short right now. We could run him lower and admittedly $16,000 is a stretch for him, but he has run and won at higher levels and he appears to be rounding into good shape now so he's earned a shot at it so we can see what we have. I'm not convinced of his ability on the grass, but his tries over turf courses have been at much, much higher levels ($25,000 CL and up) and his one win on grass was over low condition allowance horses here at Tampa where you routinely see $16,000 horses winning. Again, he's earned the shot. If we don't have an opportunity at Tampa, we KNOW we have a horse that can do well at Canterbury and that's what this group is mainly made up anyhow - Minnesotans. That being said, as horses start moving out of Tampa back north, we'll see fields shortening up and with it a greater opportunity to get Fiz a race under his belt before he joins his owners.

So we wait for the opportunity in Tampa or to ship up here to resume campaigning in Shakopee. With a winter storm warning for tomorrow it's hard to believe that opening day is 35 days away...but thankfully it is.