Saturday night’s Group 3 Ladbrokes Easter Cup (2698m) in Launceston will be Cool Water Paddy’s 100th race start.
Win, lose, or draw, it will also be the pacers last.
Trainer Juanita McKenzie confirmed that connections had considered retiring the gelded son of Ohoka Arizona after this year’s Tasmania Cup. But given the close proximity between that race and the Easter Cup, they decided to give the pacer another tilt at the Launceston Pacing Club’s premier race.
Saturday will be Paddy’s fourth Easter Cup Final that he will have contested. It could have been his fifth, as he was in the market for the 2020 Cup, which was subsequently abandoned due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He pulled up pretty good from the Tassie Cup, so we decided to give him another go at the Easter Cup,” said McKenzie.
Cool Water Paddy contested the first two-year-old race of 2018, the Keith Stanley Debutante, finishing second.
“He was very green as a two-year-old, and Paul Hill (who trained him at that stage) did some education with him as a two-year-old, and then I ended up with him.
His second start was a win in the 2019 Tasmanian Guineas, before finishing fourth in the Tasmanian Derby at his next start. Since then, he has raced at the highest level in Tasmania.
“He went through his classes pretty quickly.
“He has done a super job, but he hasn’t been able to go to the level above to horses such as Harjeet and a few of Toddy Rattray’s good ones, but in saying that, he has had a lot of problems we have had to deal with, and he hasn’t been the easiest horse to train.
“I didn’t think I could get him back when he returned from Perth (after 11 starts in 2022 and early 2023). But I had to trust myself as a trainer, as I knew the horse really well, and I knew I could train, and I eventually got him back.
“I feel like the last couple of years, he has put in some nice runs, and he definitely got better as a stayer, but he lost the speed that he had as a young and middle-aged horse,” said the trainer.
Cool Water Paddy is owned by Tasracing’s harness form expert Jamie Cockshutt, along with Barry Cooper, David Kamaric, and Adam Aherne.
The pacer is named after David’s late father, Paddy.
Cockshutt stayed true to his word after telling him that when he found the right horse, he would name it after him, and Cool Water Paddy was the one.
The pacer will be retrained to the saddle for the next stage of his career. If he isn’t suitable for that, McKenzie said the gelding will have a paddock at her property for the rest of his life.
Cool Water Paddy will start from the pole draw in Saturday’s Easter Cup, with McKenzie’s son, Jack Watson, taking the reins on the nine-year-old gelding.
“He has got good manners (from the stand) and he will be there about. It is a good field.
The pre-race favourite at the time of writing is Triedtotellya at $1.90, from Mydadsaid at $6.50, Star Major at $8.00, with Eureka Jo the only other runner in single figures at $9.50.
