That'll be fine, although really not as efficient...you get a point regardless for ingenuity. Still, if you run across this type thing again, a def query could be your ticket and is worth the practice. Also, if you're just interested in working with in-memory layers rather than messing with your ArcMap TOC layer objects, you could use Make Feature Layer with a query (or copy to in_memory workspace), etc...and you're back to the need for query syntax again. Nice to know that there are various legitimate options!
Glad you got it!
Enjoy,
Wayne