It was hectic with having three horses running yesterday. The fiancé and I do almost all of the work ourselves to get them ready to run, so having one in the fourth, fifth, and seventh race makes it a little tough. Our groom, her brother, and her dad helped us with getting the horses up to the paddock and cooling them out or we would have been in a world of hurt. We were literally going non stop from early in the morning until early evening.
My pretty filly!
She could have posed a little better.....
Nelson's win picture from last week.
Princess was in the fourth race, a non-winners of three lifetime going seven furlongs. She drew the outside post, #7 of 7 horses, which was perfect. After breaking on top, the rider took a hold of her and set her just off of the pace. She started to really pick it up coming out of the turn and the horse inside of her started getting out, pushing Princess wide. She kept digging in down the lane and ended up winning by two lengths. She got a perfect ride, I couldn't have asked for a better one. So proud of my girl!
We had Volage, aka Nelson, in the fifth race. He won a maiden special weight here last week. The race didn't knock him out at all, he was bucking and kicking on the walker the next day, so we ran him again this weekend. After he won, there were people mouthing off to his owner about how the horses that he beat weren't much, which we already knew and is the truth (that's why he was in a non-two $5,000 instead of an allowance this race). However, a win is a win and it matters to someone. I don't see why people have to be assholes to the owner about it, let the guy enjoy his win. Anyway, I was hoping he would run well enough yesterday to at least shut some of them up.
Nelson is a big old plodder and will just lope behind the rest of the field if the rider doesn't be really aggressive. The rider did a good job of keeping him close to where he needed to be and Nelson ran a pretty good third, which was fine. No excuses, he just got outrun. This is the first time he actually came back a little tired, so at least he finally put some effort into a race.
By the time I got back from Nelson's race they had already called to get ready for the seventh. I only had about ten minutes to get Harley bridled, wrapped, and stretched before we went up. I hate doing race day wraps because wrapping anything with Vetwrap without some form of padding freaks me out. Having to do it in a huge hurry REALLY made me nervous, but they actually turned out well and didn't budge during the race. Phew.
Harley drew the #2, which sucked because she tends to run better on the outside. I really got nervous when she didn't break well.
Apparently he was right, because she came flying back to the winner's circle too.
Harley and Dennis are now three for three. This was Harley's first time against open company and even one of our owner's said he didn't know if she would be able to win it due to the competition now being tougher. She showed so much heart and try! It was impressive that she won, but even more so that she overcame a bad break to do so.
Thank you Dennis!
She's in the white. This was right after they broke.
Harley was 9 1/2 lengths behind at the quarter pole. Dennis is a smart rider and didn't panic when she broke bad. He just sat there and let her gradually get closer instead of freaking out and shipping her to catch up. At the half mile pole she had made up a little ground, now only 5 1/4 lengths behind the leader. At the quarter pole she was third of six horses by 2 1/2 lengths. Dennis swung her to the outside and she came flying to win it by a length and a half!
Zinging down the lane. Dennis said she was just really starting to run and had a lot left, that he had a hard time getting her pulled up.
So, we had a pretty good day yesterday. Winning all three races would have been even better, but I'm not going to complain.
