SHAKOPEE, MN – [EDITOR’S NOTE: Ted Grevelis, one of our co-founders, manages Breakaway Stables, owner of Magic Castle, an entry in the Minnesota Sprint Championship.  We took the opportunity last week to give some insight into going in a big race from the perspective of a small claiming partnership finding itself in an unfamiliar spot. This is the final entry of our series.]

I’ll skip to the end in case you didn’t see the race live or the replay yet: we lost. Magic Castle came in 6th.

We didn’t break as sharply as we would have liked, but a pair of strides out he and Zeke got pinched back badly to last. Out of any real options, all Zeke could do was try and make one sustained run. They worked themselves into 4th, but got a little tired from the effort late and finished 6th.

While disappointing, there wasn’t a lot of options once we were squeezed. Zeke did an admirable job with the hand he was dealt against a really good group of MN bred sprinters.

We earned $1250 from the effort which, after you subtract entering, starting and jock fees, we barely broke even on the race. However I maintain, for the reasons outlined earlier, this was the right decision to make.

We did learn something as well: he CAN make up ground. In his first race off the claim he had a hard time being behind horses. That was not an issue in the race. We’ve maintained all along that by not starting until 4 he still had a lot to learn about racing and it looks like he’s doing just that.

Canterbury put on a great show and treated the owners great. I think our people had a good time through the entire experience. While we’re all disappointed we didn’t do better, we’re still proud of the boy.

Magic Castle came out of the race really well and now we’ll decide on what to do next. It could be Hawthorne, it could be Remington. We’ll decide in the next week or so and go and try to win a few more races.

Our thanks as a team goes out to Karl Broberg, Clemente Montoya, Joel, Zeke and everyone else that had a hand in getting us here.

I hope you enjoyed following us along and though the fairytale didn’t happen, we’re very grateful for the opportunity.

And we’re not done yet!