Louisville Native Gargan Aims to Claim Some Derby Glory

It was late October 2018 when trainer Danny Gargan arrived in Lexington with a plan: acquire a dark bay gelding named Tax from a $23,000 maiden claiming race at Keeneland.

Bred in Kentucky by Claiborne Farm and Adele B. Dilschneider, Tax first hit Gargan's radar when the New York-based trainer watched the then-2-year-old finish second in another maiden claiming race at Churchill Downs. Intrigued by the gelding's pedigree and raw talent, Gargan claimed the son from the last crop of Arch for $50,000. 

"When I claimed him, I knew he was going to be a live horse," Gargan said. "The second time I worked him, I thought he was special. I worked him with some decent horses, he worked tremendous, and that's when we decided to supplement him to the Remsen."

Six months later, Gargan's faith in Tax has done nothing but earn interest. 

Third in the Dec. 1 Remsen Stakes (G2) at Aqueduct Racetrack, Tax picked up two points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby, and the first Saturday in May suddenly became a tentative, if ethereal, possibility.

Two months later, Tax earned another 10 points with a winning performance in the Feb. 2 Withers Stakes (G3) at the same track. Opting to skip the March 9 Gotham Stakes (G3) in favor of more training, Gargan sent Tax back to Aqueduct, where he was the runner-up in the April 6 Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G2). The finish tacked 40 additional points onto his final tally, and with that, the one-time claimer punched his ticket as Gargan's first starter in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1). 

"When you claim a horse, you don't know exactly what you get," Gargan said. "Sometimes you get lucky and get a good one, and sometimes you don't. He's turned out to be a good one. 

"I liked him when we got him. He was a big, good-looking horse. Until he worked that second breeze in company, I didn't realize how good he was, and I thought, 'Oh, this is a really good horse.'

"After the Remsen, I thought I should have been second. I think I messed it up a little bit. I told Manny (Franco) that I thought if we got in front of Maximus Mischief, we could beat him. So on the turn we went after him. That probably cost us second, because I hadn't trained Tax up to go a mile and an eighth. He'd had just one good work. He came up a little short that day and it cost us second. But I knew that day he was going to improve, and he's improved every race." 

A Louisville, Ky. native, Gargan never strayed far from the track as a child. After working as an assistant for Nick Zito, Gargan worked briefly as a jockey agent before striking out to train on his own in 2013. 

Several years later, Gargan happened upon racing enthusiast Randy Hill of R.A. Stable in Saratoga, N.Y., and the two struck up an immediate friendship. 

"We met in Saratoga, where for us New Yorkers everything begins and ends except the Kentucky Derby," Hill said. "We go up to Saratoga every year. I was walking into a very popular restaurant called 15 Church and Danny was walking next to me. I said, 'I know you, you're Danny Gargan. Come with me and I'll buy you a drink.' So we went in and started talking and we hit it off really well.

"After the summer, Danny called me and said, 'I own a horse named Divine Miss Grey. Some of the owners want to sell 50% of her.' I went to the Racing Form, looked her up, and I knew I could not get hurt on the horse. I bought into the horse and she goes on to win six stakes races and $600,000. We're good friends. He's a great trainer and a great guy." 

One year later Gargan called Hill again, this time asking if he'd like to buy into his newest fast-climbing claimer, Tax, campaigned to that point by the partnership of Hugh Lynch and Corms Racing Stable. But Hill said he was reluctant to add another horse to his roster. 

"Danny claims Tax and he calls me because any time he claims a horse, I usually go in," Hill said. "I had been on a losing streak, paying bills and not winning anything and I said, 'Danny, I have enough horses, let's skip it this time.' Then the horse comes in the Remsen and I called and said, 'You've got to let me back in. No matter what the cost is you have to let me back in. This horse is going to the Derby. If you go to the Derby with this horse and I don't go because I didn't buy in, I'll jump off a bridge.'"

While Gargan won't be the only trainer to saddle his first Derby starter on Saturday—Bret Calhoun, Koichi Tsunoda, and Brendan Walsh will send out By My Standards, Master Fencer, and Plus Que Parfait, respectively—Gargan could break an almost two-decades long losing streak for native Kentucky trainers in the first of the American classics. The last conditioner to win the Run for the Roses that hailed from the Bluegrass State was John T. Ward, who took the race in 2001 with Monarchos. 

The only gelding entered in Saturday's field, Tax will have his own set of challenging statistics to overcome. Since the Kentucky Derby's inception 145 years ago, only nine geldings have taken home the coveted rose blanket. The last to do so was Mine That Bird (2009), who turned in a massive rally in the stretch to go from 19th to first. 

"It's just another race," Gargan joked. "It's fun and I'm from Louisville. Everybody that is running in the Derby really wants to be here, otherwise we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be running these horses who are 20-1 and still excited just to be running. I think every horse in the race is 20-1 except for like four horses. Tax is doing really well and it means the world that I'm in the Derby. 

"He's a fighter," Gargan said of Tax. "He likes competition. Everyone else talks about how they had a bad trip in the Wood, but if you watch the head-on, my horse had the bad trip down the lane. Tax took a beating all the way down the lane. So, I think if we were on the outside we would have won the race but he just got beat down in there and after a while was like, 'I'm over this.' Hopefully we get a cleaner trip in this race, and I think we're live." 

Assigned post 3 in the 19-horse field, Tax and jockey Junior Alvarado will have their work cut out for them. But on what is expected to be a rainy weekend, Gargan said the post could be exactly what his horse needs to get the job done. 

"I wanted to be post 4, 5 or maybe 3, because the rail is good here," Gargan said. "I didn't want to be on the outside and have to use him early to get over near the rail. He breaks out of the gate running anyway so now we can break and it won't be a big deal. We'll get right over. If Mark (Casse)'s horse (War of Will) goes, I'm going to tuck in behind him and if he doesn't, he's going to tuck in behind me. Obviously there is some speed outside that will probably clear us both, but I'd like to be sitting fourth or fifth on the inside." 

"I think this is one of the best Derbys you can be in," said Hill, who also has another Derby hopeful in Vekoma. Hill and Gargan started Divine Miss Grey in the La Troienne Stakes Presented by Inside Access from Chase (G1) May 3 on the Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1) undercard. She finished eighth.

"I think there are four to six horses that can win (the Kentucky Derby) and I have two of them," Hill said this week. "It's as competitive as it gets. I said to my wife, 'If I'm dreaming and you wake me up, I'll never speak to you again.' I've been in this game for 25 years and the dream was to get a horse in the Derby. I get two and Divine Miss Grey is also racing this weekend in the La Troienne on Friday; and in the Churchill Downs Stakes (Presented by Twinspires.com, G1) with Majestic Dunhill on Saturday. I've won a lot of races, a lot of grade 2s and 3s, but never a grade 1 and this weekend I'm in three grade 1s with four horses. If you ask me how I'm doing, I'm on top of the clouds. I enjoy every single second of it. 

"No matter what, you have to have luck. I think Tax and Vekoma are both eligible to take a step forward. Tax came off an eight- or nine-week layoff and ran his eyeballs out. They're both training out of this world. When people ask me how I'm doing I say, 'I'm doing so good I don't know what to do with myself.' I've said to everyone that I've already won. I'm in the Derby and I may win my first grade 1 with Divine Miss Grey. I feel like it's Tax's time and my time."

"It's a big weekend for me," Gargan said. "We're here and It's all up to him. He's training good and I think if we get the right situation, he'll be one of the horses that can win the race."