Page 43 - February 3 2019

Cold Cash 123 closes to win the Grade 1 Rainbow Derby. Cold Cash 123 is enjoying his winter break in Brock, Texas.
“If he just gets away with them and has a clean shot, he can overcome a lot,” Baldillez added. “He’s real powerful.”
Cold Cash 123 proved he could overcome a lot several times last year, as the gelding had a habit of breaking slowly and using a power-
ful late kick to win races. It was only in his final start of the year, The Championship at Sunland Park, that he finally ran a complete race from start to finish.
“He put it all together at the end of the year. I wish he’d have done it earlier in the year—it wouldn’t have been so nerve-wrack- ing,” said Baldillez. “But he did put a good race together and really run a super race.”
The Championship at Sunland Park
was significant because of its distance, as well. Hailed as the classic 440-yard Quarter Horse, Cold Cash 123 dominated at 400 yards in the Championship.
“I’d have to say that the race I was most
thrilled with was the last one, because it was 400 yards. I think that as much as I talked to Sleepy about why can’t (Cold Cash 123) get his tail out of the gate, this time he proved he can,” Walt said of the Championship. “I don’t know what Sleepy did, but he certainly did it and (Cold Cash 123) was first all the way. That to me was the most impressive race he had.”
“It just took this horse some time to get his confidence,” said Gilbreath. “Way back real early in his two-year-old year, he got run plumb up on the rail at Ruidoso, and he just didn’t want to break for awhile. He’d break
in the mornings, but wouldn’t break in the afternoons...kind of drive you crazy when you know he’s a very fast horse. I think he’s finally got it together.”
Gilbreath also trained World Champion Refrigerator, but shared that horse with California legend Blane Schvaneveldt. Cold Cash 123 is the first World Champion Gilbreath
has campaigned from start to finish on his own, and he’s not letting go of the horse anytime soon. Cold Cash 123 spends his winters at Gilbreath’s farm in Brock, Texas, enjoying a climate that is certainly milder than his Michigan roots.
“It’s been an absolutely great year. We had his mother and grandmother and all those relatives, so it’s been absolutely great and a thrill to think that someone from Michigan could possibly do something like this,” said Carolyn, adding of Cold Cash 123’s dam, Hot Cash 123, “Hot Cash has been quite a woman, let’s put it that way. I know she had Cold Cash, and he’s been abso- lutely breath-taking, but last year (in 2010) she had the World Champion Paint Horse, I Do One Two Three. So Hot Cash has earned her keep.
“I want to thank the Michigan part of this operation, and that includes Jay and Lou Hall, because they start the horses,” Carolyn added. “If it wasn’t for Walt and Sleepy and everyone, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Roy Baldillez handrode Cold Cash 123 to victory in the Cold Cash 123’s breeders and owners, Walt and Carolyn Bay.
Grade 1 Championship at Sunland Park.
SPEEDHORSE, February 3, 2012 41
Stacy Pigott/Speedhorse Ruidoso Downs
Stacy Pigott/Speedhorse Stacy Pigott/Speedhorse