Girvin Lands Running

Damon's Mound (Girvin) has the feel of an inspiring story for our sport, as the David who landed his slingshot squarely on the forehead of Goliath in the keynote juvenile showdown of the summer. The family that bred his first five dams had turned down big money for their spectacular Churchill debut winner, and their fidelity to minor-league trainer Michelle Lovell (16 winners from 88 starters in 2022) paid off handsomely when Damon's Mound readily beat the vaunted Gulfport (Uncle Mo), who has already been reserved a slot in the Ashford stallion barn, in the GII Saratoga Special S. last Saturday.

Gulfport's connections remain entitled to optimism for any rematch, having seen him badly checked before rallying for second. Be that as it may, it seems safe to assume that the winner's breeder, Cliff Love, is again being pestered by agents with fresh offers. But while we must pay tribute to the perseverance of his family, on suddenly conjuring this sudden blossom from a page that is a virtual snowfield, in terms of black type, by the same token Damon's Mound must be counted a real feather in the cap of his young sire.

Something, after all, must explain how this line has come to life after being so anonymously seeded for several decades. The first four dams of Damon's Mound are respectively by Stroll, The Prime Minister, Ruhlmann and Temerity Prince. His mother San Antonio Stroll did muster a couple of stakes placings, on turf at Retama Park, but the level at which she showed commendable consistency (won three of 14) can be judged from career earnings of $75,001. And otherwise the page ekes out its next black type only in his third dam's half-brother, courtesy of a 13-length debut third among Texas-breds. (His two wins would eventually follow under tags of $12,500 and $7,500.)

Given that he had already drawn attention to himself with Devious Dame, as impressive in the Astoria S. at Belmont as when becoming his first starter and first winner at Churchill in May, Girvin merits an appraisal as one of the early achievers in the annual shake-out between talk and deeds in the notoriously hyped freshman scene.

David O'Farrell, whose family stands Girvin at their Ocala Stud, was delighted not only that he happened to be in town for the Saratoga Special, but that he was also asked to represent his valued clients in the winner's circle.

“Cliff and Michele couldn't be there, and they were very gracious,” O'Farrell says. “It was a great day for us, the whole family was there. As far as I can tell, Cliff doesn't seem interested in selling the horse. He turned down offers after the maiden win, he's excited, and he's marching on. It's a feelgood story. Most people sell. And most people, no disrespect to Michelle Lovell or Gabriel Saez, would maybe not be so loyal to the people that got them there. Cliff could probably have hired six Hall of Fame caliber riders that were available, but he stuck with his jock and shipped him up. And was rewarded for it. It was great to see, and it's great for the game.

“The dam is their only mare that we board. Cliff is obviously a Girvin fan: he called me when we had just acquired the horse, to see if we had room, and he's now bred to him four years in a row. So, he now has a yearling filly, a weanling colt, and the mare's back in foal. The filly's remarkable. The mare has produced some good-looking babies. But it's true, she has no pedigree to speak of.”

If some of us feel uncomfortable with the all-then-nothing commercial stampede to unproven sires, that does at least tend to permit some kind of early judgement to be made. In most cases, his first book tends to prove the biggest and best a stallion ever gets. The opportunity will still prove too fleeting for most, however, so the very least we can do is congratulate those farms that do generate some momentum in this very tough environment; and explore why that might be happening.

Ocala Stud, after all, appeared to be offering Florida breeders something a little different when welcoming Girvin, who had made his solitary juvenile start only the week before Christmas. In doing so, true, he outpaced a subsequent graded-stakes sprinter over six furlongs at the Fair Grounds, before ending the meet as its premier Classic hope as winner of both the GII Risen Star S. and the GII Louisiana Derby. He never really cleared traffic at Churchill, however, and was then nailed on the line in the GIII Ohio Derby. That prompted a waiting ride in the GI Haskell S., where he beat McCraken (Ghostzapper) and Practical Joke (Into Mischief). That was a peak he never retrieved in three subsequent starts, the last of which lucklessly proved to be the only one he managed when connections persevered the following year.

As a result, he was hardly fresh in people's minds when starting out at $7,500 in 2019. Nor did his own paternity seem particularly resonant: though Tale Of Ekati represents a top-class family, Girvin remains his only elite winner and only millionaire. On the other hand, Girvin did bring two pretty priceless advantages to his new career. One was the seasoned assistance of the O'Farrell family; and the other was the fact that his own dynasty has gradually become highly esteemed itself.

Sure enough, Girvin proved the busiest Florida debutant of the year, with 149 mares. He corralled 124 in his second season, too, before taking the customary “bubble” dip to 63 when trimmed to $6,000 in 2021. This time round he rallied to 90 mares, as the word got out from the under-tack shows.

“I think, in today's world, his third and fourth years were quite successful,” O'Farrell says. “It's hard to maintain those early books but this year we got a huge push from the 2-year-old sales. The majority of the seasons were sold after the March and April Sales here at O.B.S., where he made a big splash, so it felt like a lot of people jumped on him late.”

The O'Farrells themselves, of course, have long specialized in breeding for the 2-year-old sales. It's a precarious model, taking on competition that can select stock specifically for the job, but they have honed it with great flair since Joe O'Farrell started Rough'n Tumble here in 1956. The following year the pioneer horseman staged the first commercial 2-year-old sale at Hialeah Park, selling 16 head under canvas at an average of around $5,000. That whole market has come a long way since–but so, too, have the broodmares and facilities developed by Joe's son Mike and grandsons David and Joe.

Girvin might not have seemed an obvious type for their program. “But he broke his maiden as a 2-year-old up on the pace,” O'Farrell emphasizes. “That was a big plus for us when we were pursuing him. He did have that precocity, and while obviously he was best going two turns, and was a Classic type of horse, his half-brother Cocked And Loaded set a track record sprinting at Keeneland, and he has Yes It's True in his pedigree [as granddam's sire]. He had plenty in there that gave us confidence.”

Certainly Girvin did not let the farm down when making his sales debut. A colt pinhooked as a Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Select yearling, by Bet Racing for $90,000, catapulted his value to $725,000 when sold by Paul Sharp to Donato Lanni for Michael Lund Peterson at the same house's Midatlantic Sale. Among his other scores was the home-bred Devious Dame, out of an unraced Quality Road mare. (She's called The Shady Lady, which looks a neat play on the farm's historic address on Shady Road.) Devious Dame made $240,000 from One Up Bloodstock before joining Norm Casse for John C. Oxley. Overall Girvin ended up processing 40 of 43 juveniles at an average $91,925. That confirmed him as No. 1 Florida freshman, as had been the case with his yearling average of $35,371.

The flamboyant stakes scores of Devious Dame and Damon's Mound, plus five other winners, represent a significant early marker from just 17 starters to date. (A couple of the four Kentucky sires currently above Girvin in the rookies' table have fielded twice as many starters.)

“It's really good to see them showing all this early speed,” O'Farrell says. “But you have to believe that they are going to carry it, that they're going to want to stretch out. Devious Dame has been extremely impressive sprinting but they're itching to stretch her out in the Sorority S. at Monmouth next weekend.”

O'Farrell believes that the sire's physique corroborates that potential. “He's a good-sized horse,” he says. “Extremely athletic-looking, really a flashy individual. He looks like they could be quick, but also has that two-turn look so that they can carry all that speed.”

As intimated earlier, interest in Girvin has been much enhanced by the upgrading of what was already a strong page.

It had always been intriguing that Girvin's second dam, dual stakes winner Catch My Fancy (Yes It's True), is inbred as close as 3×2 to the 29-for-45 Bayou legend Monique Rene (Prince Of Ascot). Besides producing one graded stakes winner herself, Monique Rene also delivered the dams of three others: Silver Max, a collector's item as a Grade I winner by Badge Of Silver; Canadian champion sophomore Kiss A Native (Kissin Kiss); and Catch My Fancy's own sire Yes It's True.

Incidentally, Monique Rene also shores up a quality I always seek: the caliber of those mares that complement the “proven” females introduced to a pedigree by stallion sons. In Girvin's case, the mares in question across the fourth generation are the Claiborne matriarch Narrate (Honest Pleasure); champion sprinter (and dam of another such) Gold Beauty (Mr. Prospector); the Group 1-winning juvenile, dual Classic-placed Maximova (Fr) (Green Dancer); and Monique Rene. In other words, this horse is backed up by a layer of unbroken genetic class.

When Girvin was first offered to breeders, his unraced dam Catch The Moon (Malibu Moon) had already produced a GIII Iroquois S. winner in first foal Cocked And Loaded (Colonel John). But then, in the months after Girvin's first foals hit the straw, his younger brother by Tiznow began to decorate the page in compelling fashion.

Grade I-placed at two, Midnight Bourbon had to settle for placings in the two New Orleans trials won by his half-brother, but then ran sixth in the Derby and second in the Preakness. After athletically averting disaster in the Haskell, he recovered to make the podium in another four Grade I events only to be lost to a horribly abrupt sickness this spring.

In the meantime another of Girvin's siblings, Pirate's Punch (Shanghai Bobby), had matured to become their dam's fourth graded stakes winner. One way or another, then, Catch My Fancy has proved to be a pretty inspired acquisition by Stonestreet for $240,000 at the 2015 Keeneland November Sale.

“No question, it's a very live family,” O'Farrell says. “Lot of activity going on. Look, he is by Tale Of Ekati, which is really the primary reason why we got the opportunity to stand the horse. If he was by Into Mischief, he would have stood in Kentucky from day one. But that's kind of our m.o. We've been able to stand stallions maybe by less fashionable sires, and have our track record with Trippi being by End Sweep; and Montbrook being by Buckaroo; and Kantharos being by Lion Heart. But Girvin has a really good bottom side, a great family. And don't forget Tale Of Ekati is very well bred, too.”

Catch My Fancy had made only a fairly brief transit through the ownership of Bob Austin, who had bought her in the same ring in January 2013, for just $30,000 (with Cocked And Loaded in utero). Austin had been at a party hosted by Darby Dan when invited to throw a dart at a board divided into free nominations. He landed on Tale Of Ekati and, with all four mares in his small program already booked for that spring, partnered with John Witte to pick out Catch My Fancy from the January catalog to take up the free date.

The resulting colt was Girvin, who was sold for $130,000 as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton October. He was intended as a pinhook by Brad Grady, but suffered a minor setback at the wrong time. Grady retained the colt to race in his own silks, and the rest is history.

And, actually, there's a neat sequel. Grady named Girvin for his tiny home community in rural West Texas–just as the stallion's breakout star was named by his Houston-based, owner-breeder for a cherished childhood hangout in the same state.

With a colt and filly quickly making waves, however, Girvin has already proved that he will not be a lone star stallion. Of course, these remain very early days. With his two-turn profile, however, O'Farrell can turn round and argue how that's actually very much in his favor.

“What also gives us a ton of confidence is that we know of others yet to start that are showing a lot of potential,” he says, noting that Girvin's big-money colt has followed another Lund Peterson investment at Timonium, Gamine (Into Mischief), to Bob Baffert. “We've only heard positive things about that horse so far, and I've heard a lot of buzz about a lot of others that are just getting ready to start. There's a lot of positivity.”