When I first saw the music, I was pretty scared. Wow, we're going to be playing this? Then I thought, 'With hard work I can get this,' and I have. One piece, Beethoven's 'Egmont' overture, looks like one of the hardest pieces to learn. You're expecting it to be given to professionals to play, and we're playing it.

I thought we could beat them, but he is a pretty good player.

I tell you, Ohio looked pretty good to me. I thought they looked good and they played hard.

I'm pretty much a realist, but we are going to give it our best. I never thought I'd be here. We're going to have a blast.

The pace was pretty high. At that point, I didn't know if I was going to make it back on, and if I did make it back on, I didn't know if I was going to have the legs. It was kind of one of those things where you wondered if you're doing it for no reason, but as soon as I got back, I knew we had a chance.

I talked to the directors and you know, myself and Robbie have had a pretty off and on spring -- a lot of sickness and injuries. Robbie crashed bad right before the classics started. He thought he would be back on form by now, but he was fighting a lot of discomforts, and right when he started getting better he got sick -- probably due to the stress trying to come back from an injury. He has had a pretty off spring for him, so he just wanted to stay home and rebuild. Coming here was going to be traveling, and the race is really an unknown to him.