Talkin bulks up to have 'best chance' in Preakness

Grade 1-placed Talkin will ultimately do the talking, but in the meantime trainer Danny Gargan is thrilled with how the Good Magic colt is doing coming into the Preakness next Saturday at Laurel Park.

Gargan said he doesn’t yet have a rider confirmed but that he will be “one of the top riders in the country.” Joel Rosario, who rode Talkin in his two starts this year, is back in California, the trainer said.

Talkin has continued training at Keeneland since he finished a well-beaten third in the April 4 Blue Grass (G1). Further Ado won by 11 lengths that day, with Talkin 1 3/4 lengths behind runner-up Ottinho. 

“He’s doing really, really well,” Gargan said by phone Wednesday. “He’s not a huge horse, but he’s eating really well. He’s put on weight (and) he’s put on muscle since his last race. We were behind the 8-ball when they brought him back, because he came in after being sick and needed some time off. We had to give him a race to get him started in Tampa.”

Talkin finished fifth in the Tampa Bay Derby (G3) on March 7, his season opener, a race won by The Puma with Further Ado second. The 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass was his second start of the year and fifth overall.

“He ran good in the Blue Grass,” Gargan said. “He kind of got stuck down on the rail. I think it kept him from running even better. I think he’d have been second easy if he’d had a better trip. He’s come out of that race better than he went into it. He used to swap leads, used to crossfire a lot in behind. He’s gotten stronger and stopped doing that lately, and that’s a big encouragement to move forward. He’s just getting more mature. We’ve been really patient with him, let him get there. And I think we’ve done everything we can to give him his best chance in the Preakness.”

A $600,000 Keeneland September 2024 yearling purchase, Talkin worked last Friday, tooling a half-mile in 49 seconds. Gargan said his final work will be this Saturday, with Talkin vanning to Maryland Tuesday.

Although Talkin could have made the Kentucky Derby field, Gargan said his target all along has been the 1 3/16-mile middle jewel of the Triple Crown.

“I never really planned on running in the Derby all year,” he said. “We had enough points to get in, but we stuck with our game plan. We know we have a horse that’s coming around. I want to go to the Derby more than anybody, but I want to win the Derby. I thought the best move for him was to give him the time to let him fill out a little more and shoot for the Preakness. … If I move forward five or six Beyers (speed figures) and move forward one or two points on the sheets, I could be in the winner’s circle. And I know I’m going to move forward.”

Asked how he’d look wearing Black-Eyed Susans, which adorn the blanket draped over the Preakness winner, Gargan said, “Well, my father won the Black-Eyed Susan. (He) won the Oaks and the Black-Eyed Susan with different horses, so it wouldn’t be the first Gargan to have the Black-Eyed Susans around him.”

As a jockey, Gargan’s late father, also named Danny, won the 1973 Kentucky Oaks, then a Grade 2, on Bag of Tunes and Pimlico’s then the Black-Eyed Susan (G3) aboard Fish Wife two weeks later.