Are you “that guy”?  I used to be him.

You know him…He's your buddy, your fellow partner, or maybe even you.

He's the guy, who no matter the outcome of a race, can explain to you why his horse should have won and can detail the shortcomings of the ride, the break, the post, the track condition, the trip, and the distance.

Unfortunately, we very rarely hear of “that guy” speak of the quality of the competition. Remember Uncle Mo vs. King Congie in their debut?

I can relate to the guy, as a recovering expert of bad beats (even if they weren't). We get so emotionally attached to our runners and they run so infrequently, we can't help but get over the moon when they compete.  What we occasionally lose sight of is there is a finish line to determine the outcome. I know that this is somewhat cliche — you can plug in your own. I always think of ESPN's Herman Edwards’ famous rant, "We play to win the game."  

Last Sunday Twilight Eclipse ran an incredible 2nd in the grade one United Nations at Monmouth. After the wire, "that guy" in me came out of a brief moment, thinking if Jose Lezcano could have gotten Twilight out a few jumps earlier, we get him his first grade one victory. After that brief relapse, I quickly remembered to appreciate how wonderful his effort was and how lucky we are to have such a tremendous racehorse.

With all this being said……Awesome Vision got hosed last week at the Finger Lakes. I'm still recovering :).