Slowly Making Progress

We were feeling quite encouraged by both UB’s good gate behavior and his third place finish, even though the company he kept in that race was of a lesser caliber. He needed that race to regain his fitness and he seemed to handle the Poly OK, so four weeks later, we looked to Turfway Park again—this time upping the competition level by entering in a maiden special weight event.

But, alas, a problem arose. Edgar Paucar, the only jockey to date that UB seem inclined to allow to remain on his back for an entire race had been injured in a spill. Mr. Paucar was sidelined for an indeterminate amount of time with a badly broken leg, so we were forced to look elsewhere for a rider.

Enter Victor Lebron, at that time a neophyte rider new to Kentucky. Being the new jock on the block generally means you can’t be too picky about your mounts, and luckily for us, he wasn’t. As UB’s reputation seemed to travel ahead of him wherever we went, we assumed Victor was either that hungry for mounts or that much of a blockhead. It was the former.

Victor stayed in the irons, and UB, who didn’t have the best of trips, found himself carried 4 wide coming out of the turn and scrambling to make up ground. Although he finished 6th, UB ran a decent race considering the serious step up in company, and Victor made all the right post-race jockey noises thanking us for the opportunity and saying that he liked the horse.

UB, for his part, stretched his neck straight out and coughed explosively.

“Uh Oh,” said I.

DAILY NOTES: Dave Earley, in the introduction to 21 Reasons Bad Things Happen to Good People, states that his book is a ‘biblical study of potential benefits that come into our lives through suffering.’ Earley frames the discussion by first reminding us of four important truths.

1. God is under no obligation to give us an explanation for suffering. We don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. God is under no obligation to answer our questions. In this life, we may never see or fully understand why many things happen. That’s what faith is about. It is trusting God in the midst of, trusting God in spite of, trusting God not only when we can see, but also when we cannot see.

Earley goes on to say that a god that he can completely comprehend is no God at all. He is glad that the God he worships, the God he serves and the God he trusts in the midst of suffering, pain and evil is bigger than he can totally understand. God is bigger than we can figure out, and therefore big enough to see us through.