KINGSTON, Jamaica - Cold Pursuit, a four-year-old dark bay gelded son of Northern Giant - Liquidity, trained by Ryan Darby for owner Marlon Biggs, came running on late, as usual, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the Howard Phillips Memorial Trophy feature at Caymanas Park on Saturday, January 9.
The race won by Cold Pursuit was a four-year-old and upwards – non-winners of three run over 5 ½ furlongs (1,100 metres).
Cold Pursuit got home by a short head in a time 1:06.4 tracking splits of 22.4,45.4 in the 10-horse field.
Sent off at odds of 7-1 and ridden by Reyan Lewis saw Cold Pursuit finishing in tearaway fashion to get up within shades of the wire to nip the even-money favourite Salvation ridden by Javaniel Patterson while Generational and Awesome Treasure finished third and fourth, respectively.
Looking at Cold Pursuit close up, trainer Darby was impressed with his recent claim and is looking forward to even better performances.
“To begin with, we got him (Cold Pursuit) in a good racing condition and was good to go. But, he always had the problem of running wide at the quarter bend.
“And, even at this stage where he is a little more focused, he has not fully dealt with that issue, but Cold Pursuit is not a problematic horse as such and he has been performing well for us and we are seeing improvement. So, we are very glad about that.
“At present, he is a little more focused coming around the bend and in so doing he loses fewer lengths, gains momentum and picks up his rhythm a little quicker and that is one of the major reasons that he is getting there, but as I said before, he is showing much more improvement as he is still at the point where four-year-old horses are still improving.
“So, we are lucky that we got him. If we can get him to put on some muscles and power up some more and continue to improve on his present path, we will just take it to step by step and let him continue to improve as we go along and hope that he makes it a little bit further,” trainer Darby said.
