By Ben Massam
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Joe Sharp and owner Brad Grady enjoyed the thrill of their relatively young careers Sunday when Girvin (Tale of Ekati) closed stoutly to notch a hard-fought nose victory over 'TDN Rising Star' McCraken (Ghostzapper) in the $1-million GI Betfair.com Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park. The pair seeks to keep their hot streak rolling in Saturday's $750,000 GIII West Virginia Derby with the 3-year-old Phat Man (Munnings), who provided a fitting precursor to his barnmate's achievement three weeks prior, storming down the center of the Monmouth Park strip to annex the Listed Long Branch S.
“The [Long Branch] was coming up as a short field–a little on the light side,” Sharp said from Saratoga Tuesday morning. “He suggested he was capable of wheeling back quickly, and the race looked like the right kind of field to get some blacktype, so we took a shot and it worked out.”
But the parallels between Girvin and Phat Man are few and far between, according to Sharp.
“They're not really similar in any way, but it does always feel good to get a win over a track, regardless,” he explained.
Sharp's 3-year-old road show stops at Mountaineer Saturday with a fit-and-ready Phat Man, who received a short period of downtime following a pair of hard efforts 15 days apart. A $57,000 Fasig-Tipton July yearling turned $20,000 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-old, Phat Man will look to add to his nearly $130,000 in career earnings when he goes postward in the lucrative West Virginia Derby.
“The timing is good, he had a nice little freshening,” Sharp said. “Right after his win in the Long Branch, we sent him to Fair Hill and Bruce Jackson for some hyperbaric treatments and some spa, just to kind of pamper him a little bit, since he ran back close. He put in two huge efforts back-to-back. He went there for about a week, and he's been here at Saratoga ever since. He's really been thriving, and he had a nice work over the Oklahoma surface 10 days out from the race.”
The Spa's iconic training track is Sharp's summer base and the site of Girvin's final preparations for Sunday's triumph in New Jersey. Still absorbing his first Grade I win as a trainer, Sharp emphasized that, while the Aug. 26 GI Travers S. would be Girvin's next logical race, it is far from definite given the Sept. 23 Pennsylvania Derby's newly minted Grade I status.
“We're just going to keep our options open and see how this main track shapes up at Saratoga and see how Girvin handles it,” the 32-year-old said. “He's been training at Oklahoma, but hasn't seen the main track. We'll probably give him a work over it and go from there.”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
