Girvin using turf route to audition for Risen Star

Trainer Joe Sharp and owner Brad Grady’s pair of talented 3-year-olds, Girvin and Cool Arrow, are entered in the $50,000 Keith Gee Memorial, a one-mile grass race on the Saturday card at Fair Grounds.

Both horses had been stuck at the Evangeline Downs training center in Lafayette, La., unable to race at Fair Grounds because of the equine herpesvirus event that had put Fair Grounds under quarantine until Jan. 21.

Girvin, by Tale of Ekati and out of the Malibu Moon mare Catch the Moon, won his career debut Dec. 16 in a dirt sprint by a head over Excitations in one of the fastest maiden races of the Fair Grounds meet. Sharp had intended to run Girvin in the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 21 until the quarantine quashed that plan. He is using Saturday’s start as a potential trial run for the Feb. 25 Risen Star Stakes.

“The goal is not for him to be a grass horse,” Sharp said. “With the timing, it’ll give him two-turn experience that could set him up to come back in three weeks.”

Girvin, Sharp said, “had a little bit of an issue with his foot” that cost him a few days of training.

“We’ve got it under control now. He’s back on a regular schedule,” said Sharp.

Cool Arrow won 3 of 6 starts last year at 2 and capped his season with a front-running score in the $300,000 Springboard Mile at Remington Park. Totality, the runner-up in that race, returned to finish 10th in the Lecomte. Sharp said Cool Arrow also is being considered for a stakes race at Laurel Park.