Peaks and Valleys

I knew when we started this venture that there would be a series of ups and downs. Similar to other walks of life, no streak (good or bad) lasts forever. The tricky part is to identify the top of the peak or the bottom of the valley and act accordingly. Looking back, it is easy to see that we reached our pinnacle with Tytus' win in the Shot of Gold. While the dropoff wasn't sudden, we have slowly slid to where we are today - what I hope will be the bottom of the cycle. To say the highlight of our 5-race weekend was getting Yanks Acomin claimed away from us is pretty bad. With the other runners struggling to hit the board, the biggest blow came yesterday in Iron Boy's first and last race of his comeback. After flashing his normal early speed, he was clearly getting tired down the stretch. Rather than pack it in like most horses coming off a 13-month layoff would do, Iron Boy lived up to his name and dug in for one last push to the finish. In doing so, he suffered a fatal injury. The irony is that the injury was sustained in his healthy leg, not the one we spent all this time nursing back to health. Regular readers of this blog know how much I thought of Iron Boy and yesterday's courageous effort will only solidify his standing as one of our all time best - RIP buddy.

In what may end up being somewhat of a coincidence, the horse that brought us to the top of our cycle (Tytus) was shipped backed to Chicago today to resume his training with a target of being ready for opening day in Tampa. Here's hoping his return will signal the day we turned around the current downward cycle - we'll know that answer in the next couple months or so.