Gearing Up for the Second Half

It's amazing what a day of rest can do for the brain.

After a marathon work week, I was basically brain dead yesterday. I took a much needed day to just chill on the couch and watch movies, which was just what the doctor ordered. Between the extremely long work "week" (actually equal to over two normal work weeks) and an up-and-down past few days (more on that later), my body quit and refused to move except to pick up junk food for dinner.

But the good thing is that the lazy day re-energized me for the year's "second half". I took a second day of sleeping without the alarm today (one of my favorite things) so I got up a bit later than I thought I would but accomplished a lot more than I expected during the day. After cleaning my mess of an apartment, a task that I needed to do if I didn't want to look like I lived in the city dump, I sat down with a notepad and evaluated some things.

Over the past few months, I've been getting more and more burned out. My writing has massively suffered because of it so it was time to figure out what to do to get back on track. I realized that I've fallen into the "comfort" trap, especially due to the thought that not many people read my work on ABR (I monitor the numbers each week as part of my job so I'm even more aware of this fact). Since I'm extremely goal driven, I wrote out some goals that I want to accomplish both this year and in the near future to hopefully combat the writing funk and give myself a path to my long term goal. I also had a small chat last night with one of the people that got me started in the industry, which was extremely helpful and gave me a needed boost and an option that may be talked about down the road.

I have a big break coming up in October when I go back to Washington so I'm hoping that my recharging plan works until then. As I'll be driving cross-country for at least a few of the days of that break I'll really be able to step away from work, which will be a much needed few days to refresh and come back strong for the rest of the year. 

In other, off-topic news: Because people haven't heard enough about the Royal Baby... let me warn you that I am obsessed with the Royal Family. One of the things I was most sad about when I turned down the Fulbright is that I wouldn't be in the U.K. to see the aftermath of the royal birth, so I was even more intense with my baby birth watch (followed by baby name watch and discussions about how old the name George Alexander Louis sounds). 

Of course when I heard the news on Monday, I did a bit of a jig in my desk chair (don't judge, it had been a long week) and I even tuned in to a live webcast when they stepped out of the hospital for the first time. Because of the birth, I figured it would be a good week. I mean, the future King of England had been born, even in this day and age, that's pretty cool. However, I quickly learned that I was wrong ...

Twitter has an option where you can get tweets from certain profiles sent straight to your phone and I take advantage of it. I have mobile alerts of my favorite sports teams and drivers and even some of the higher profile horse racing operations such as Darley and Coolmore since they are such a driving force in the industry. So when I woke up on Tuesday to text messages from the Coolmore account saying St Nicholas Abbey had broken down, it immediately ruined my day (and week).

To back up a bit and give a little background on "Nic" ... he was an awesome 2-year-old in Europe back in 2009. He jumped on the scene about a year after I really started following European racing so I was immediately drawn to him as he showed flashes of brilliance (a word I don't use for many horses, I'm hard to impress). He only made one (bad) start the next year due to injury but came back at 4 and 5 to prove that his 2-year-old year wasn't a fluke. 

Nic (#1 in purple and white silks) in the 2011 Breeders' Cup Turf before he took over the lead. Ironically another friend of this blog, Brilliant Speed, is the 8. Speedy finished 3rd in the race that year.

He won the Breeders' Cup Turf (my second favorite race on the card after the Mile) in 2011, my first year covering a big horse racing event from the press box so that pretty much sealed his fate as one of my favorites. 

Nic's connections (minus trainer Aidan O'Brien) after the victory. Joseph O'Brien became the youngest jockey to win a Breeders' Cup race with the victory.

To put my love for Nic in perspective, if you know how much I love Point Given, dial that back by about one. There are only two modern day stallion photos I have on my apartment walls, one is Point Given at Three Chimneys and the other is Nic winning at Breeders' Cup. If anything happens to either of those horses, I automatically go into bad mood mode.

Anyway ... the injury he suffered sounded bad as part of the tweet read "We hope to save him for a career at stud," something you never want to hear as usually that means the horse's odds are not great. He came out of surgery okay and looked to be doing as well as possible until I again woke up to text messages this morning saying the horse had colicked during the night (Coolmore had a rough week as another one of their stallions colicked this week too but is doing okay) and his condition is guarded. Talk about a week that started so well going down the tubes as fast as possible.

Add that to the fact that one of the top stallions in the industry died today hours after we first learned he was going through tests at Rood and Riddle due to showing neurological signs yesterday and it has been a tough week (and we can't forget the outcry over Grade 1 winner Monzante's death last Sunday, it really has been a tough week).

The good thing about bad weeks is that they only last for seven days. I have my fingers crossed that once Sunday hits, the news will only be good. If not we'll roll with the punches, something I've gotten extremely good at this year.

Until next time,
Mel

Back to our regularly scheduled program

After 16 weeks and four days, I can finally return to my regularly scheduled life ... well sort of. 

I was discharged from physical therapy today when my therapist decided that I am as good as he can get me. My ring finger is, in his words, "excellent" after two surgeries. I have full function in it and it can go nearly straight (I still have a brace that I wear part of the day that will help it straighten all the way when the tendons get stronger) but I still can't move the tip of my index finger very much so more surgery may be involved. However, that's up to my doctor and depends on how much it affects me so we'll find out more about that later on, possibly at my next doctor's appointment but that's not for a while.

With the dismissal from PT, I was also cleared to ride again. I'm toying with the idea of taking riding lessons so I can get back into riding shape before the girls get here in October. I may try and pick up some catch rides on friends horses as well but I'm not sure about any of that yet. I'm currently jogging and spending 30 minutes to an hour at the gym daily to train for my first 5k post injury so I'm using that to get somewhat back in shape at the moment. We'll see if/when I'll pick up riding again (before October). I haven't been on a horse since last August when I got to ride Boomer with J.R. so getting back in the saddle is definitely long overdue.

But before I can plan any of that, I have to survive the next two weeks. I have tomorrow and Thursday off then start the marathon of working for nearly two straight weeks while my boss is out of town. In that time is also the first yearling sale of the year so I'll be spending this Saturday and Sunday morning at the sale before work looking at horses and possibly Monday night as well depending on where they are in the hip numbers when I get off work. I love, love, love sale season, it is my favorite part of the industry after the breeding side so I'm willing to sacrifice sleep and gym time in order to spend time on the other side of town looking at yearlings and racehorses that are selling as well.

I expect July to fly by with my schedule this month and one of my best friends is flying in for a few days next month so it looks like it will be a good summer. Between all of that and the September Sale at Keeneland, Breeders' Cup prep races and bringing the horses over from Washington in October, it really looks like the second half of my year is going to go much better than the first part. Hopefully that holds true as we get to the new year!

Until next time,
Mel