Tax earns second chance in next month's Pegasus World Cup
Unbelievable.
That is how trainer Danny Gargan describes Tax’s condition as he eyes a start in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) following a near-record setting prep in the Harlan’s Holiday (G3) at Gulfstream Park.
Gargan went on, “He came back perfect. He’s doing good. Everything is great.”
The 4-year-old gelded son of Arch controlled the Dec. 12 Harlan’s Holiday from start to finish and easily turned back Eye of a Jedi by 4 1/2 lengths in the 1 1/16-mile mismatch. He appeared to be steaming toward a track record before jockey Luis Saez, anticipating the Pegasus on Jan. 23 at the same track, geared him down for the final sixteenth of a mile.
The final time of 1:41.15 narrowly missed eclipsing the mark of 1:40.96 set by Social Inclusion in 2014.
As Gargan sees it, the scintillating performance rewarded owners Randy Hill, Dean Reeves and Hugh Lynch for their willingness to give the horse an extended break of 2 1/2 months at Hogan Equine, owned by veterinarian Patricia Hogan, in Cream Ridge, N.J.
Gargan believes the time off was invaluable for Tax’s body and mind.
“It’s something a lot of people don’t understand. I wish I could give them all some time off every year,” he said. “They would last longer and make a lot more money. It’s really a beneficial thing for the horse.”
In Tax’s case, it helped that the connections have been playing with house money for a long time. The horse was bred and owned by Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider when Gargan dropped a slip for him for $50,000 in a maiden claiming race for juveniles on Oct. 21, 2018, at Keeneland.
Claiborne and Dilschneider received the claiming money and the winner’s share of a $23,000 purse. Gargan, thinking he might have an allowance horse, came away with much more. Tax won the Withers (G3) and the Jim Dandy (G2) as part of a seven-race campaign last year in which he earned $779,500.
When Tax stumbled at the start of this year’s Pegasus to finish ninth of 10 and followed that with a lackluster fifth-place finish in the May 2 Oaklawn Handicap, Gargan approached the owners about giving the gelding a well-deserved break. They never hesitated.
“The guys who own this horse are all great,” the trainer said. “They’ve been in the game. They’ve had a lot of success in the game.”
Tax returned to the barn from his layoff as a different horse.
“The time off did him a lot of good. He’s bigger. He’s stronger,” said Gargan, noting that Tax is not the finicky eater he once was.
The connections had hoped to make the Breeders’ Cup, but those plans had to be scrapped when Tax spiked a fever before his scheduled comeback race, the Oct. 10 Fayette Stakes (G2) at Keeneland, and had to be scratched.
There are big plans for 2021. Although Gargan fully expects to make the Pegasus – Bovada makes him a 6-1 futures choice – he has the $20 million Saudi Cup on Feb. 20 in Saudi Arabia as a backup plan. The $12 Dubai World Cup, on March 27 at Meydan Racecourse, also is on the agenda if Tax uses his first start of the year to prove he belongs.
No matter the early results, Gargan expects to build down time into the schedule.
“He’s a gelding. We’d like to keep him around a couple of more years,” he said. “At some point every year, he’ll get a vacation. It could be three months. It could be one month. But he loves to go to the farm.”
And it shows.