What A Roller Coaster - But Right Now It's All Down

The last few days have been trying, hopeful and sorrowful. In a nutshell - it's what owning racehorses can be like at times.

On Thursday we learned of the catastrophic breakdown of Miss Belle Express, a fine MN-bred filly who was to carry our colors this summer at Tampa and then back at her home at Canterbury Park. The lows in this business can get no lower.

Thursday evening another filly, this time 3-year old Standardbred I Am Woman who we own under partnership with VIP Stables took on seven others in a non-winners of 3/$9,000 lifetime event at Maywood Park. It was very, very difficult to get excited about the race. Honestly, it was impossible. Put pace on they did. In a break from the strategy previously employed by driver Brandon Simpson, I Am Woman went straight for the lead out of the seven hole. She showed some nice early speed, but was three wide through most of the first turn. She got the lead, but had to work mighty hard for it. She led the field through the middle half of the race but as the field moved into the final turn, Cole By A Nose started her move right off our gal's flank. Cole took a bit of a lead in the stretch, but I Am Woman fought back to get a head back in front. It was apparent that the early struggle for the lead took it's toll and Cole By A Nose came back to win by half a length. The rest of the field followed three lengths behind the top pair.

Second isn't bad and I can understand a bit the change in strategy. You certainly don't want to be behind a wall of tiring horses with such a small home stretch such as on Maywood's half mile oval. But to have to charge virtually the entire first quarter to get to the top - and most of that three wide? Considering she only ended up second by a half, that wasn't bad. A shift to a more advantageous post next out and she may be able to do some real damage.

Finally there was Fizzy Pop who I thought was in a good position to pick up another check. I thought he was completely underrated coming into this race. He was not. He was flat. It was a straight $25,000 claiming race over the grass at Tampa Bay Downs. Fizzy came out of the gate well and seemed to be in good position early. He worked his way to mid-pack down the backside and that was as good as it would get. He came a bit wide in the stretch to get some running room and simply came up empty. It was a depressing and embarassing 8th place finish. On the heels of the breakdown of our filly, this was the icing on the cake. I was hoping that something good would happen here. It didn't.

This won't end our pursuit of the dream, but it's one of those weekends that makes you want to just give it up. Chuck it all and say the heck with it. It's one of those times when no move seems to be the right move. I won't, of course. I'll wallow for a while. I'll need to work through this depression and sort things out. Now I'm just going to try and shake it off with the kids this weekend.