Keith Gee is springboard to Risen Star for Girvin

The plan was to run the sharp debut winner Girvin in the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 21 at Fair Grounds, but that plan had to be scrapped, which is why Girvin has wound up in the $50,000 Keith Gee Memorial Stakes, a one-mile turf race Saturday at Fair Grounds.

Girvin could well be the most talented 3-year-old in the Keith Gee. He made his first start Dec. 16, contested a fast pace in a dirt sprint, and stayed on gamely to outlast another apparently talented first-time starter, Excitations, the two finishing far ahead of the third-place horse.

Trainer Joe Sharp and owner Brad Grady had designs on the Lecomte, but Sharp sent Girvin for a brief stay at the Evangeline Downs training center – just as the equine herpesvirus outbreak swept over Fair Grounds. The backstretch was quarantined for several weeks, with Fair Grounds’s gates shut to any shippers – including Girvin – when the Lecomte was run.

Now, Sharp and Grady have an eye on the Feb. 25 Risen Star and are using the Keith Gee as a potential means to that end. “He doesn’t have to win this race,” Sharp said.

Girvin missed a little time, Sharp said, with a minor foot problem but has gotten back on a relatively steady work schedule. He and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. break from the rail and are likely to make the lead in the Keith Gee. Girvin is by Tale of Ekati and out of the unraced Malibu Moon mare Catch the Moon, whose first foal to race is the useful dirt miler Cocked and Loaded, and there seems a greater chance that Girvin will fail to reproduce his debut form Saturday than run back to it.

Sharp and Grady also entered the Springboard Mile winner, Cool Arrow, but that horse is being considered for other spots as well, and the Florida-based jockey Luis Saez was named to ride. All signs point to a scratch.

Most of the other seven in the Keith Gee, which goes as race 5, know each other fairly well from turf races at this meet.

There is little fault to find with Cowboy Culture, who won his career debut last fall at Churchill in a turf mile and returned to capture a first-level grass allowance over the Fair Grounds course in December. Cowboy Culture, trained by Brad Cox, got a generally favorable trip last out, but that was mainly because he was professional enough to race effectively between and inside other horses.

Second in that Dec. 11 race was Hot Dad, who returned with his own first-level allowance win Jan. 14, suggesting that Cowboy Culture is the best of that lot, with one possible exception: Art Imitates Life.

Art Imitates Life was a one-paced fourth behind Hot Dad, but he was making only his second start and his first going two turns, and the addition of blinkers Saturday could boost his form.

The card starts slowly, but after the Keith Gee come three allowance races of some note. Race 6 is a second-level, two-turn dirt allowance for fillies and mares that includes three horses who showed promise at this time last year – Shaken, Cced, and Royal Obsession. Race 7 is a female-restricted third-level turf-mile allowance with an $80,000 claiming option in which Freudie Anne appears to be the controlling speed.

Race 9 is another third-level turf allowance with an $80,000 claiming option, and Blarp, Bullards Alley, Big Changes, and Glorious Empire appear to be the principals.