Apprentice Dylan Davis Debuts at Saratoga

Following in the footsteps of his father Robbie and sister Jackie, 18-year-old apprentice jockey Dylan Davis made his riding debut at Saratoga Race Course Monday afternoon.

Cheered on by family members and friends, Davis finished fourth aboard Black Rhino after pressing the pace in race 4, a six-furlong claimer, and then crossed the finish line eighth aboard favored Fierce in a 5 ½-furlong maiden claimer.

Both mounts were trained by Wesley Ward, for whom Davis gallops horses in the morning. His first mount was supposed to have been aboard the Robbie Davis-trained Sandyinthesun, but the horse was scratched from race 2.

“It was very exciting, the whole crowd and everything,” said Davis, a 2011 graduate of Saratoga Springs High School. “You can’t get any better than Saratoga. It was a lot tougher than I thought; I’ve been galloping horses for almost two years, and this is nothing like it. It’s a whole different game.”

The 104-pound Davis – the youngest of Robbie and Marguerite’s six children – said he hopes to ride one or two horses a week during the meet with his 10-pound weight allowance. In the fall, he plans to move his tack to Suffolk Downs in Massachusetts, where his sister is currently riding, and after that, the siblings plan to ride at Aqueduct Racetrack during the winter.

“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years now,” said Davis. “Everything I know I’ve learned from my father.”

Robbie Davis, for 20 years a mainstay on The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) circuit with 3,382 winners, is currently a trainer living in Saratoga. Jackie Davis, a 25-year-old graduate of the Chris McCarron’s North American Racing Academy, has ridden 259 winners of more than $4.1 million since making her riding debut at Saratoga in 2008.