Page 75 - January 20 2012

Returning from a broken collarbone, Roy Baldillez hand-rides Cold Cash 123 to a one-length win in the Championship at Sunland Park-G1.
COLD CASH 123
Closes The Door On 2011 With A Championship Win
by Stacy Pigott
Throughout 2011, Cold Cash 123 built up a reputation as the quintessential 440 horse, winning five of six starts at the distance including two Grade 1 stakes. So owners Walter and Carolyn Bay were understandably a tad con- cerned when they realized the Championship at Sunland Park-G1 was only 400 yards.
“To me, that’s really as important as win- ning the race...the fact that it’s a 400-yard race,” said Walter Bay, who, along with his wife Carolyn, bred and owns Cold Cash 123 and campaigns him under the moniker of T Bill
Stables. “I am sure there were a lot of people, including myself, questioning whether he could even do a 400.”
Trained by Sleepy Gilbreath, Cold Cash 123’s dominance at 440 yards started as a two-year-old, when he won a trial to the All American Futurity-G1 and returned to win the All American Juvenile, running a faster time than the winner of the All American Futurity later that same day. He then won the Southwest Juvenile Championship-G1, also at 440 yards.
As a three-year-old, Cold Cash 123 suffered
only two losses. The first was in a 400-yard trial to the Heritage Place Derby-G1. The sec- ond was in the Grade 1 All American Derby.
“He just got overanxious, and he turned his head and got away way behind,” said jockey Roy Baldillez, who rode Cold Cash 123 in the All American Derby. “Then he lost his running position. He was trying to run through them, he didn’t have anywhere to go.
“If he just gets away with them and has a clean shot, he can overcome a lot,” Baldillez added. “He’s real powerful.”
SPEEDHORSE, January 20, 2012 73
Tommie Morelos/Coady Photography