She’s still Rexy, not Sheila yet, but she finished 2nd today, which is her best finish yet, albeit in a lower class of competition. She was in a claiming race, which means she could have been claimed (bought) by anyone who qualified and entered a claiming ticket for her.
I was torn between the business logic of getting some money back on the investment and moving on to a horse with more potential and the emotional feelings of not wanting to give up on her or her “Sheila” name which is so special to me because of our dear departed colleague of the same name.
She got a good start and chased the leader around for 6 furlongs. However, she had nothing left in the stretch. Nonetheless, she finished a solid second, 4 ½ lengths in back of the winner but several lengths in front of the 3rd place finisher.
I was sad that we were not in the winner’s circle, especially because a special presentation was made to the winner by members of our military. More importantly, I was sad that they might put a red tag on her, indicating she had been claimed and was no longer ours. Separation anxiety, I guess, that was relieved when we found out there were no claims in the race.
Now, Linda is talking about running her again in just a few days at 5 ½ furlongs on the grass… but we’ll see what actually happens.
All the “kids” love the carrots but none of them have eaten apples or peppermint.
One of the ironic problems is we’ve become friends with several other owners and feel obliged to attend their races as a show of support. Since often they have multiple horses, this can seem an overbearing responsibility at times. The other side of the coin… it’s nice to have so many new friends who are simpatico with the vagaries of horse racing.
We almost got Linda into a balloon but by the time we got to the launch site, the winds had picked up and our flight was canceled. You’d think with all of my hot air, we could overcome this obstacle… but no.
Visit the Official Avram Freedberg website!
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