Riverdee enjoyed a big weekend last week with a double at Montpelier and Pennsylvania Hunt Cup.
Cool Jet made it three in a row, controlling the Grade 3 Noel Laing Stakes at Montpelier last Saturday, to increase his 2025 ledger to a league-leading $190,500. Ridden by Bernie Dalton for Jack Fisher, the Irish-bred broke sharply, waited to see who would commit and then committed. To a front-running tour de force over the natural hedges at James Madison’s former home. It was a thing of beauty.
“The race went the way I thought it would. I didn’t think anybody else wanted to make it so I jumped off, went a little slow early just to see if anybody was going to go and nobody went, I let him do whatever he wanted to do,” Dalton said. “He was nice and relaxed, loping along, well within his comfort zone. He was carrying a lot of weight so I was mindful of that, I didn’t want to waste any energy early on if we could help it. By the time he jumped the first hedge, I said, ‘We are in business.’ He went right through it like it was nothing. The further he went, the more comfortable he got. We were just doing as much as we had to do. He was brilliant. As good as ever. Push button.”
Somewhere along the line this season, Cool Jet became Riverdee’s all-time leading earner. The 9-year-old son of Jet Away will close the year in the Grade 1 Colonial Cup Nov. 23.
• Potus continued the torrid weekend with a flawless round of running and jumping in the allowance timber at the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup Sunday. Ridden by Graham Watters and trained by Jack Fisher, the son of Lemon Drop Kid picked up his second win in a row and fourth for Riverdee, drawing away by a length over Hard Game and jockey Freddie Procter.
“Four runners, we jumped off, nobody wanted to be too forward so Freddie and I set the pace together. Potus is going to stay every yard of 3 miles, so I tried to be forward. He put in a spectacle of jumping around there,” Watters said. “He was perfect the whole way, jumped the third-to-last, which is probably the biggest on the course, landed traveling and it was just a case of jumping the last two and going to win our race. I was confident the whole way because we were in such a good rhythm.”
Cool Jet cruises to his third consecutive stakes win. (Camden Littleton photo).
