Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Under-the-radar trainers look to make name for themselves
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Folks get tired of the same-old-sameold, which is one reason the Kentucky Derby result last year was so refreshing. The connections of 80-1 winner Rich Strike were unknowns in racing, their stories a welcome change.
One can imagine how Derby fans, through the years, grew weary of hearing about Colonel Bradley, then Calumet Farm and the Jones Boys, then Lukas and Zito, and now Baffert and Pletcher. People do embrace the novelty of a Derby stranger, if only as a diversion from a wornout script.
Danny Gargan is well aware. Gargan grew up in walking distance from Churchill in a house at First Street and Evelyn, a racetracker from birth. He is now 51, and the depth of his knowledge and appreciation for what the Derby is all about cannot be understated.
“Everybody wants to win the Derby, and they come from everywhere trying to do it,” Gargan said this week from his winter base at the Palm Meadows training center in Florida. “It can make for some great stories.”
Gargan is the son of the late jockey also named Danny Gargan, who died in 1975 at age 31, when his son was just 4. The elder Gargan was best known for winning the 1973 Kentucky Oaks aboard Bag of Tunes. The younger Gargan worked in various backstretch capacities, mostly in Kentucky and New York, before winning his first race as a trainer in March 2013 at Aqueduct. He has had one Derby starter, Tax, a no-threat 15th at 35-1 in the 2019 running.
Some four years later, Gargan is on the prowl again, this time with a chestnut colt named Dubyuhnell, who figures to be favored Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs when he makes his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis.
Dubyuhnell has won two of three starts, with his most notable win a last-out triumph in the Grade 2 Remsen on Dec. 3 at Aqueduct. Gargan is firm in his belief that Dubyuhnell has tremendous upside and that the fun might just now be starting.
“Tax was a really talented horse,” he said, “but Dubyuhnell is a different kind of horse. He’s more determined; he has a bigger heart. This horse – he wants to be a racehorse.”
Dubyuhnell, by the top young sire Good Magic, was produced by Wild Gams, by Forest Wildcat. He was purchased for $400,000 at the 2021 Keeneland September Yearling Sales by West Paces Racing, with the powerhouse Stonestreet Stables of Barbara Banke, the colt’s breeder, staying in as partial owner.
“Anytime Barbara Banke wants to keep part of a horse, that’s a huge sign,” said Gargan.
West Paces is a group from Georgia headed by Larry Connolly and Keith Mason. The colt’s name is a play on Washington and Lee University, Connolly’s alma mater, more casually known as W&L.
Although Wild Gams was a three-time graded-stakes winner who earned nearly $1.2 million from 23 starts, she was strictly a sprinter. Her produce includes Cazadero (by Street Sense), a precocious 2-year-old who did not stretch out.
“This horse won the [1 1/8-mile] Remsen in his third start,” said Gargan. “Everybody is worried about the pedigree, but I actually like it when a sire that got a distance is mated with a really fast mare. Watching him gallop out, he really gets moving late. Even in
his breezes, the farther he goes, the better he gets. The dosage and all that – everybody knows it goes out the window once you see a horse can run.”
Dubyuhnell debuted on closing weekend at Saratoga, finishing fourth in a maiden race to Instant Coffee, who now ranks among the top contenders for the Derby. He then won an Oct. 2 maiden race going a mile at Aqueduct, then won the Remsen.
Jose Ortiz rode Dubyuhnell in all three of his starts and will be over from his Gulfstream Park winter base to ride him in the Davis.
The 1 1/16-mile Sam Davis is one of three qualifiers (20-8-64-2) to be run Saturday toward the May 6 Kentucky Derby, with the others being the Withers at Aqueduct (20-8-6-4-2) and El Camino Real Derby (10-4-3-21) at Golden Gate. Dubyuhnell (30-1) is the only Sam Davis starter to make the list of 20 in the latest Derby Watch rankings in Daily Racing Form.
Now nearly 10 years into his solo training career, Gargan has had more than 400 winners, including eight in graded races. By contrast, the credentials of Aldana Spieth are more modest.
Spieth is the trainer and co-owner of Dreaming of Kona, one of the other Sam Davis contenders. A 44-yearold Argentine native known as Aldana Gonzalez until she changed her name after marrying jockey Scott Spieth six years ago, she has won 143 races in an off-and-on training career dating to 2006. Two of those came in stakes – one in a $75,000 race at Delaware Park in 2017, and the other last month at Gulfstream when Dreaming of Kona, ridden by Scott Spieth, was elevated from second to first via disqualification in the Mucho Macho Man going a oneturn mile.
“I’ve never had one like this before,” Aldana Spieth said early Wednesday aside her Barn 11 shed row at Tampa, “and it’s pretty exciting. I get up every day for this.”
Dreaming of Kona, a gray Kentucky-bred by Fast Anna, probably doesn’t have the right bloodlines to get a mile and a quarter, but Spieth is confident the colt will get the Davis distance in his first two-turn attempt. Scott Spieth, who into Wednesday had ridden 4,981 winners in a career dating to 1987, will ride again Saturday.
Dreaming of Kona “has actually been training me a little, the way he acts sometimes,” Aldana Spieth said with a smile. “He gets a little quiet, but my husband says, ‘This is what a nice horse is like.’ ”
Both the Spieths have been in racing long enough to know to keep their heads about them.
“We have thought about the Kentucky Derby a little bit,” she said, “but I’m going one step at a time. I don’t want to plan out much because I don’t want to get disappointed. Let’s see what he shows us Saturday.”
Something close to the 12-horse capacity is expected for the Davis, including Litigate for Todd Pletcher, the Hall of Fame trainer who already has two wins in the Derby and a halfdozen or so prospects for this one. Other probables included Classic Legacy, trained by the red-hot Bill Mott, and the Mark Casse duo of Champions Dream and Classic Car Wash. Mott has won high-profile features the last two Saturdays at Gulfstream, with Art Collector in the Pegasus World Cup and Rocket Can in the Holy Bull.
Next week brings the first 100-point qualifier of the 2023 Derby prep season, the Feb. 18 Risen Star at Fair Grounds (50-20-15-10-5). Entries for that 1 1/8-mile race will be drawn Saturday, with Victory Formation, Curly Jack, and possibly Blazing Sevens among those taking aim.