Lightly raced Girvin moves to the top of Kentucky Derby Points List

Ron Correll
Senior columnist
Tracksideview —-

An out-of-town shipper and a previous local winner didn’t stand a chance on Feb. 25 in the Risen Star at Fair Grounds in New Orleans when Girvin charged home to win the Grade 2 mile-and-a-sixteenth Kentucky Derby prep over a fast track.

The son of Tale of Ekati was sent off at about 8-1 by the betting public as shipper Mo Town, winner of the Remsen at Aqueduct, and Lecomte winner Guest Suite dominated the betting.

Local Hero set the early fractions of 23.70 and 47.02 as Girvin waited patiently in fifth. Mo Town got involved rounding the second turn but was empty by the quarter-pole.

Girvin had no serious challenge as he strolled down the long Fair Grounds stretch to win by two lengths in 1:43.08 and pick up 50 points and a spot in the starting gate at Churchill Down on the first Saturday in May. Untrapped was second and got 20 points, while Local Hero picked up 10 and Guest Suite got five.

Girvin was coming off a second-place finish in a turf race after breaking his maiden on dirt. The colt is trained by Joe Sharp and he said, “He will stay here and probably run in the Louisiana Derby. We’ll let him tell us, but that’s my inclination.”

One of three Japanese colts could be in the Kentucky Derby starting gate if the connections choose to come. The three colts in order of preference are Epicharis, Mont Saint Legame and Adirato. The colts have 50, 40 and 20 points respectively, but I’m not going to add them to any list until a decision is made on coming to the United States.

The next two races, both on March 4, will be the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream in South Florida and the Gotham at Aqueduct in New York. After those two races the point’s picture should take on a whole new look.

From now on I’m only going to list the top 20 colts in points’ order. The full list can be found at the Churchill Downs web site.

POINTS

Girvin 50
Classic Empire 32
Untrapped 24
El Areeb 20
McCraken 20
Gormley 20
Guest Suite 15
Gunnevera 14
Practical Joke 14
Lookin At Lee 12
Uncontested 11
One Liner 10
Irish War Cry 10
Mastery 10
Mo Town 10
Royal Mo 10
Petrov 8
Irap 8
Wild Shot 7