Trainer Rebekah Swinko speaks highly of Yankee Lariat, who has performed superbly in the Invitational pacing class, and she rants about Young's Tower, who dominates the filly and mare pacing ranks in the state of Michigan. She also talks of Asti Asti, a mare who has secretly crept up the condition ladder, and is more then able of talking Hazel Park's finest pacing mares.

But what of YF Inspiration? A trotting mare who has battled tooth and nail with Invitational mainstays, a trotting mare that has her own style, so much so that she must post parade all by her lonesome because of her rebel temperament.

Perhaps she doesn't like other horses or doesn't like the crowd which gathers at the Hazel Park rail to root for or against her, and thus is not fan appreciative or fan receptive; she can care less, she is a fighter and a survivor. She fights for her life in a stretch duel and is angered when challenged for the lead.

She refuses to lose, and the fourth race on Friday night at Hazel Park, the featured $9,500 Fillies and Mares Preferred Handicap pace, proved it.

Small Favors finished a perfect trip, in second, and Trendy Girl flew late and finished third. YF Inspiration yielded the lead as she neared the quarter pole to an early rushing Small Favors, but worked the “give and go” to perfection when YF Inspiration immediately re-took and reached the quarter pole in :291.

Inspiration then took the field the rest of the way and stopped the timer in 1:593 in what was her eighth win in 2006. She is nearing $50,000 in earnings this year.

You have to have heart and Inspiration to succeed. YF Inspiration has plenty of heart, and plenty of, well, inspiration.