Kentucky Derby prep: Cox, Pletcher colts lead Sam F. Davis field
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Three-year-old colts trained by Todd Pletcher and Brad Cox, who have combined to win the Kentucky Derby three times, compose one-third of a nine-horse field for Saturday’s $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes, one of four stakes races on Tampa Bay Downs’s annual festival preview day card.
The 46th edition of the 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-olds on the main track offers 20-10-6-4-2 qualifying points for Kentucky Derby 2026.
The Sam F. Davis is the major prep race for the Oldsmar oval’s biggest race of the meet, the $400,000 Tampa Bay Derby (G3), to be contested March 7.
Click here for Tampa Bay Downs entries and results.
Also on Saturday, Tampa Bay Downs will host the $125,000 Suncoast Stakes, at a mile and 40 yards for 3-year-old fillies on the main track, The race offers 20-10-6-4-2 qualifying points for the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks. It is the fifth race on the card. Eight sophomore distaffers are entered, led by unbeaten Zany, the potential-laden daughter of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah trained by Pletcher.
Pletcher has two Sam F. Davis entries in Renegade and Epic Desire, who will break from posts 6 and 2, respectively, and Cox has entered Confessional, who will break from the inside no. 1 post.
Post time for the first race Saturday is 12:10 p.m. EST. The Sam F. Davis is carded as the 11th and final race at approximately 5:30 p.m.
The Sam F. Davis Stakes, won by Cox and jockey Flavien Prat last year with John Hancock. Both Renegade and Confessional will be ridden by world-class jockeys, with Irad Ortiz Jr., aboard Renegade and Prat on Confessional. Epic Desire’s jockey will be Samy Camacho.
Prat has won the two most recent Eclipse Awards as North America’s outstanding jockey, with Ortiz winning the two before that and five of the previous six.
Pletcher has won the Sam F. Davis a record seven times, including five times between 2010 and 2023, when the race was classified as a Grade 3 stakes. The conditioner’s first two Sam F. Davis victories played a vital role in the race achieving Grade 3 status in 2009. Pletcher’s first Sam F. Davis winner, Bluegrass Cat in 2006, subsequently finished second in the Tampa Bay Derby (G3), the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes and won the Haskell Invitational (G1).
The trainer’s Sam F. Davis winner the following year, Any Given Saturday, was second in the Tampa Bay Derby and won the Dwyer Stakes (G2), the Haskell Invitational and the Brooklyn Handicap (G2).
Pletcher’s sixth Sam F. Davis winner, Destin in 2016, also won that year’s Tampa Bay Derby and the Marathon Stakes (G2) and was second by a nose to Creator in the Belmont Stakes.
Although Renegade is a maiden, he is held in high regard by respected handicappers. On Oct. 17, he won a one-mile maiden special weight race at Belmont at the Big A but was disqualified and placed second behind Paladin for a bumping incident. In the Remsen Stakes (G2) on Dec. 6 at Aqueduct, Renegade took the lead briefly in the stretch before falling victim by two lengths to Paladin’s late rally.
Confessional won his career debut Oct. 16 at Keeneland, then finished second by five lengths to the Pletcher-trained Nearly on Jan. 2 in an allowance optional claiming race at Gulfstream Park. Nearly won his next start, Saturday’s Holy Bull (G3) at Gulfstream, winning by 5 3/4 lengths to make Confessional’s last performance better-looking.
2026 Sam F. Davis LS
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