Injury forces retirement of Haskell winner Girvin

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Girvin, winner of the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth last year, has been retired due to a soft-tissue injury, trainer Joe Sharp said Tuesday.

The top 3-year-old of 2017 in Louisiana, where he won the Grade 2 Risen Star and Grade 2 Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds, Girvin went into the Kentucky Derby nursing a troubled foot and ran 13th behind Always Dreaming. He then returned to finish second in the Ohio Derby, narrowly beaten by Irap, before catching McCraken in the final stride and winning the Haskell by a nose.

“After going through his quarter cracks going into the Derby, and to come back with that race a couple months later, that was the validation he needed outside Louisiana,” Sharp said.

Girvin went winless in three starts following the Haskell, running 11th in the Travers at Saratoga, fifth in the Oklahoma Derby at Remington, and second in the Grade 3 Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star behind Bee Jersey in his lone start as a 4-year-old.

A son of Tale of Ekati owned by Brad Grady, Girvin retires having won four of 10 starts and $1,624,392.

“He changed my career,” Sharp said. “He took us as a team and as a family to places we always dreamed, searching for a lifetime to go. It will be hard to find another Girvin, but that’s what you get up every day for, to look for the next one.”

Girvin’s injury, in his left front leg just below the ankle, was discovered after a work at Churchill Downs June 30. He could have been rested for nine months and then returned to racing, Sharp said, but “the concern would be that he’d be coming back midway in his 5-year-old year and that didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Plans for a stallion career for Girvin have not yet been established, said Sharp.