2025 Eclipse Awards: Cool Jet

Cool Jet did not just beat his rivals in three graded stakes in Virgina and South Carolina in the spring and fall of 2025. He trounced them.

Those victories have made Cool Jet a finalist for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s champion steeplechase horse of 2025.

Owned by Riverdee Stable and trained by Jack Fisher, Cool Jet won 3 of 6 starts and earned $190,500 in 2025, by far the most successful season of a career that began in Ireland in 2020.

Cool Jet had a limited career in Ireland and Britain from 2020 to early 2022, winning once in seven starts. He was sent to the United States in the middle of 2022 and was a stakes winner over hurdles within a year.

Cool Jet was winless in two graded stakes in his only starts of 2024, but his 2025 campaign was remarkably different.

A 9-year-old gelding in 2025, Cool Jet was beaten in his first two starts, including a second in the restricted Good Night Shirt Stakes, a hurdle race at 2 1/8 miles at Foxfield Racecourse in Charlottesville, Va., in late April.

Cool Jet did not lose again for more than six months. He won his Grade 1 debut by a commanding 7 1/2 lengths in the $150,000 Commonwealth Cup at 2 1/8 miles at Great Meadows in The Plains, Va., on May 3, part of the Virginia Gold Cup program. Cool Jet led throughout under regular rider Bernie Dalton.

:: Full list of 2025 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

Cool Jet did not race in the summer and returned to the track in the Grade 3 Mariann de Tejeda Memorial Stakes at 2 1/8 miles at Foxfield in Charlottesville, Va., on Oct. 5. Cool Jet stalked the pace before taking the lead on the final circuit. He won by 4 3/4 lengths beating a field that included Snap Decision, the champion steeplechaser of 2024.

Cool Jet was held out of the American Grand National at Far Hills, N.J., later in October and started in the Grade 3 Noel Laing Stakes at 2 1/2 miles at Montpelier, Va., on Nov. 1. Allowed to set the pace, Cool Jet proved impossible to catch, beating six rivals by 4 3/4 lengths.

Cool Jet started one more time in 2025 but did not get far. In the Grade 1 Colonial Cup at 2 5/8 miles in Camden, S.C., the last major jump race of the year, Cool Jet fell at the first hurdle. He was quickly on his feet. A three-race winning streak had ended in dramatic fashion in the $150,000 weight-for-age race.

For the year, Cool Jet, bred in Ireland by Mrs. Deidre McGrath, won 3 of 6 starts and earned $190,500, the most productive year of his career.

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