Screening the Sam Davis

SUPER SCREENING THE KENTUCKY DERBY PREPS

G3 Sam Davis Stakes

The Kentucky Derby 2015 prep spotlight moves to Tampa Bay Downs this Saturday as twelve 3 year-olds will contest the G3 Sam Davis Stakes, a race that has produced a starter in nearly every Kentucky Derby over the past 10 years. However, this graded race does not offer qualifying Derby points but it does serve as a prep for the Tampa Bay Derby to be run on March 7th. The headliners feature Ocean Knight, who broke his maiden in impressive, gear-down style at Aqueduct going 6 furlongs. Catalina Red is the local favorite and the interesting Ami’s Flatter, exits a race won by Bluegrass Singer and that colt finished a good 3rd in what turned about to be a very strong Holy Bull Stakes run last Saturday.

Half the field will be trying two turns for the first time so an advantage to those with the two-turn experience already behind them. Not a ton of early energy distribution types in here and from a Super Screener standpoint, Royal Son and Ami’s Flatter appear to be your pace leader candidates.

The Super Screener will favor horses with two-turn route experience or at least one-turn mile experience. If a sprinter is to qualify, we’ll need to see 90+ figures across all BRIS pace and speed rating categories. With a softer pace, horses projecting to be within 4 lengths of the pace will be preferred. Horses that come from off the pace have been winning more than their fair share of races as this distance and surface.

Rating the field, we come up with the following Super Screener assessment:

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