Thank You “I’ll have another”

by Angela Brooks

May 5th 2012 the 138th Kentucky Derby race begins on a sunny warm Kentucky day. The horses load the gates and they are off. Horses run the race with such grace after months and weeks of practice. The jockey on top of the high strung animal melts into the saddle and becomes one with the horse.

As the race comes to the final corner a horse begins to pull away from the middle of the pack and gives just a little more than the rest. I’ll have another wins the race.

The jockey begins to cry as the reporter ask what he was thinking after winning the race. He did not mention the two million dollars that was just won but what it meant to his family and the belief he had in the horse. His belief was what propelled him to ride that horse like the winner that he became. The money was an end result but it was not the focus.

He was quoted by the NY Daily News: “I don’t know what to say,” an emotional Gutierrez said after the win. “Thanks to Mr. Reddam for the confidence he showed in me at Santa Anita for allowing me to continue to ride this horse. He is an amazing horse. I told everybody before the first time I rode him, I knew he was the one.”

2012 Kentucky Derby: I’ll Have another races past Bodemeister down the stretch to win the 138th Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs. 

I love horses and horse races – I do not go to  the tracks anymore because now we go to the baseball field. There is something about a horse than can totally change your mood, lower blood pressure and when you sit on their back to ride it becomes a friendship. In my younger days I rode the barrels and poles in club shows and the state show twice. I was far from a rider like Gutierrez, but when he says ” I knew he was the one the first time he wrote him” I understood what he meant.

The other statement that caught my attention was “Thanks to Mr Reddam for the confidence he showed in me and allowing me to ride this horse”

Over the years of listening to patients in mental health talk – the words low self esteem and no confidence is spoken allot. The two things that I feel make or break the healing and growth of a person.  Just knowing that someone has confidence in you gives you the courage to step out of your own comfort zone and try to be more.

As new business owners – my clients need to know that I have confidence in them to do the task it takes to grow their own business – providing guidance and business tips help them go in the direction that it takes to grow. Once they have met goals along the ways I give them another step to work on through email and a training center. Like Gutierrez, who had ridden other horses to the winner’s circle, he still needed to know the new trainer he was riding for had confidence in him.

You could be someone’s next step – continue giving other people courage. As a nurse, we have the opportunity to change lives by leading, with confidence, the ones we come in touch with. Help them step towards the winners circle.

Congratulations “I’ll have another” and  Mario Gutierrez, you have come a long way since your first winners Derby debut in Stewart Elliott in 2004!!!