Gargan claims his way right into the Kentucky Derby

It is only fitting that Danny Gargan’s first Kentucky Derby starter comes with a horse he obtained via the claim box. Since going out on his own in 2013, Gargan has developed one of the top claiming outfits on the East Coast.

Last fall, he took Tax for $50,000, believing he might be getting turf horse. Instead, Tax has brought Gargan back to his old Kentucky home for the country’s biggest horse race, Saturday’s 145th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

“It’s a game changer for your status once you prove you can be in these races,” Gargan, who grew up a half-mile from Churchill Downs, said recently outside his barn at Belmont Park.

Gargan, 47, said fellow trainer Kenny McPeek “pulled me aside the other day and told me he was proud of me.”

“He said that I need to get one big horse and owners will recognize how good I can train a horse,” he said.

McPeek confirmed that conversation.

“Danny’s a smart guy; does a good job,” McPeek said Monday. “Nothing’s been given to him. I like guys like that.”

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Gargan basically grew up on the racetrack. His father, also named Danny, was a jockey who won the 1973 Kentucky Oaks aboard Bag of Tunes. In that year’s Belmont Stakes, Gargan rode Private Smiles to a fourth-place finish behind the mighty Secretariat.

The elder Gargan died in 1975 in Arkansas at the age of 31. Danny was just 4 years old.

At the track, Gargan held all sorts of jobs – groom, assistant trainer, bloodstock agent, jockey agent.

“He’s tried them all,” said longtime Kentucky trainer Merrill Scherer, whom Gargan called a father figure. Training horses, Scherer said kiddingly, “was the only one he was successful at.”

Gargan said he worked for John Ward, Tony Reinstedler and Nick Zito, among others. Gargan worked as an assistant to Zito when he brought Louis Quatorze to the 1996 Kentucky Derby. Though Louis Quatorze finished 16th in the Derby, he came back two weeks later to win the Preakness.

Gargan dabbled as a bloodstock agent and spent several years as a jockey’s agent. He represented Jesus Castanon and Pat Valenzuela.

In 2013, after spending two years as an assistant to trainer Nick Canani in New York, Gargan went out on his own. It wasn’t until the fall of 2014 that he began to get serious about training. Over a five-month period, he won 10 races from 28 starters at Aqueduct and caught the attention of Richard Papiese of Midwest Thoroughbreds.

“That’s when I decided if I’m going to do this, I’m going to have do it and stop playing around,” Gargan said.

Gargan began training for Midwest in 2015 and won 84 races for that entity over a 2 1/2-year span before they split up in fall 2017. (In February, Gargan and Midwest reunited.)

Gargan said he was down to 12 horses at the end of 2017, and one of them was Divine Miss Grey. Claimed by Lucas Stritsman’s Corms Racing for $16,000, Divine Miss Grey was turned over to Gargan in spring 2017. Under Gargan’s care, Divine Miss Grey has gone 10-5-1 from 18 starts, won six stakes, and earned $883,500. She will be among the favorites in Friday’s Grade 1 La Troienne at Churchill Downs.

Gargan’s success with Divine Miss Grey caught the attention of other owners. His stable has grown to where he has 30 horses in New York and 20 in Kentucky, with 2-year-olds still to come. Mike Dubb and West Point Thoroughbreds are now among his clients.

Another client is Randy Hill, who bought into Divine Miss Grey, calling that investment “the best money I ever spent.”

Hill could have made an equally good investment last October when Gargan wanted to claim Tax, a well-bred gelding by Arch bred by Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider. Hill said he had enough horses – including the promising 2-year-old-turned-Derby-horse Vekoma.

After Tax ran a solid third in the Remsen, Hill asked Gargan if he could buy back in. Now, Hill and Dean Reeves are majority owners of Tax with Corms and Hugh Lynch as minority partners.

Gargan said he was going to run Tax in a starter allowance on turf at Aqueduct last fall. But when the Remsen, a 1 1/8-mile dirt race at Aqueduct, came up light and Tax put in a strong workout on dirt, Gargan entered him in the Remsen. After making a run at the odds-on favorite Maximus Mischief, Tax wound up third.

Encouraged by the race, Gargan left Tax in New York with the idea of keeping him going long and ran him in the Withers. Tax won the Withers, albeit narrowly, and was officially on the Derby trail. Gargan said he considered taking Tax to Florida, but the colt was doing well in New York, where assistant Rolando Quevedo got on him every day.

“That played a factor in it, too,” Gargan said. “I thought, it’s a [gutsy] move, but let’s wait until the Wood.”

Gargan said Tax needed a 1-2 finish in the Wood to get in the Derby and believes jockey Junior Alvarado, per Gargan’s instructions, made an early move that may have cost them a chance to win. But Tax’s runner-up finish to Tacitus was good enough to get into the Derby.

Tax trains like a horse who will get the distance. His fourth dam, Glowing Tribute, produced 1993 Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero.

“I’m not nervous about it,” Gargan said. “I was more nervous about the Wood than the Derby because of the points. I’m in this one, baby. I’m running a $50,000 claimer. What have I got to prove? I’m going to go enjoy myself. I’m going to go to the parties and have fun.”