JOE Sharp answered the phone on the first ring, his voice scratching out a hello, then an apology.

“Sorry,” Sharp said, clearing his throat once, twice, three times. “I’m still trying to get my voice back.”

Forgive Sharp, it had only been five days since Girvin won the Grade 2 Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds, providing the 32-year-old trainer with his biggest career win. Owned by Brad Grady, the son of Tale Of Ekati improved his record to three for four and remained undefeated on the dirt with a facile score over Patch and Local Hero.

Ridden by Brian Hernandez, the dark bay colt sat in fourth and closed it out with another stamina-laden effort, putting the stamp on his Kentucky Derby bid.

Girvin made his career debut in December, sprinting to a head win going six furlongs at Fair Grounds. Tied up in the herpes quarantine in Louisiana, he didn’t make his next start until the Keith Gee on the turf in February, finishing second, which set him up perfectly for the Grade 2 Risen Star in February, which he won comfortably by two lengths. The Louisiana Derby came next and also brought pressure.

“It was probably more pressure than the Kentucky Derby,” Sharp said. “Being the favourite, being in Louisiana year after year, they love us, there was a lot of energy around our horse, we had to deliver for the home team. We all know anything can happen in the Derby, you don’t sit there and think you’re going to win the Kentucky Derby like we did with the Louisiana Derby.”

Girvin ticked off the nine-furlong stakes with his accustomed aplomb. Unassuming in the mornings, Girvin plies is his trade in the afternoon like a carpenter with a hammer. Bang, bang, bang, bang – win, second, win, win.

JOCKEY DREAMS

Son of a horse trainer, Sharp rode at point-to-points in Virginia and made a brief foray as a flat jockey, winning 18 races in 2004 before “eating my way out of a job.” Like for most when the jockey dream fades, the search began.

“I was always going to be a jockey,” Sharp said. “I didn’t want to train, I had seen my dad struggle all those years. He’d say, ‘You want to be a horse trainer…’ I said, ‘I’m not training horses…’”

Sharp tried his hand as an agent, then worked as assistant to high-profile trainers Mike Stidham and Mike Maker, hitting the Derby Trail with some of Maker’s horses. Along the way, he married jockey Rosie Napravnik. In 2014, while working for Maker at Saratoga, life changed personally and professionally, with Grady pulling the strongest string on the professional set.

“We were at Saratoga and he wanted to claim some horses, I said to Rosie, if there is ever a time, now is the time. He was instrumental in me making the move,” Sharp said.

“Rosie and I had already discussed starting a family, her retiring which no one knew about at the time. Our lives have always worked out perfectly, I’m not saying…but it’s true, we’ve been very lucky that way.”

By September, Sharp was a licensed trainer. By November, Napravnik won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on champion Untapable and on national television announced to her mother – and the world – that she was pregnant and retiring. Carson was born in 2015 and kid brother Tucker came along a year later. If you’re keeping score, Girvin came next.

“I don’t know, pinch us. It’s a storybook there,” Sharp said. “I’m really happy it’s for Brad Grady, it’s his first Derby, he’s the reason I went on my own. Rosie gallops him, it’s a pretty neat deal all around.”

A deal that Sharp will try to keep in perspective.

“We’re grateful to have the horse obviously but I’ve been around similar situations, similar horses, even though we haven’t been down this road before, it almost feels like we have,” Sharp said.

“We are appreciative and lucky to have the horse. To actually go to the Derby with a shot, I think he can hit the board, I honestly do, it’s fun to go with a real contender and not a horse who just earned enough points to go. I’m glad to go with a horse who deserves to go.”