Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Apr. 27, 2026

Jason discusses jockey Samuel Marin's history-making weekend at Tampa Bay Downs. 

A good Monday morning to you all! Happy Kentucky Derby (G1) week to you all. Let’s hope for some good weather and good luck as they prepare for the big week in Louisville. We’ll certainly talk a lot about the race throughout the week. Shameless plug here, but I’ll be doing an AMA on Reddit for Kentucky Oaks (G1) night at 7:30 p.m. ET on the Twinspires and Kentucky Derby channels on Reddit. So if you want to talk about the Kentucky Oaks, just come find me there! 

So opening week at Churchill Downs means closing week for us at Tampa Bay Downs, and I’m looking forward to a little announcing downtime before Colonial starts in June. But I wanted to write about some of the history we saw this past weekend as jockey Samuel Marin set a new mark for jockey wins in a season. He’s now won 149 races this season, and that bests the previous high of 147 set by Antonio Gallardo back in 2015. Samuel has been a tremendous addition to the Tampa riding colony the last several years, and I won’t be surprised if he finds success at a bigger circuit sooner rather than later if he so chooses. 

Marin didn’t start riding until 2022, and the 24-year-old native of Venezuela has been a force here on Florida’s west coast since arriving. His first full season at Tampa Bay Downs was 2022/23, and he finished a very respectable eighth in the win standings, scoring 30 times from 271 mounts. He had similar results in 2023/24, but took a big leap forward in his third full season here at Tampa in 2024/25. That year he catapulted past perennial leading rider Samy Camacho to win the title with 116 wins, just ahead of Camacho’s 105. This year, Marin grabbed the lead early and has run away, now with 149 wins, almost double his nearest rival, Camacho, with 77 wins.  

Both Marin and Camacho have the same agent in Mike Moran, and he no doubt deserves a part of the credit for the success of both riders. When it comes to Marin, I really started to notice his riding a couple of seasons ago. There would be so many turf races where I’d see a horse who was far back on the turn, and all of a sudden in the lane, he was right with the leaders because he’d saved ground or got through a hole. He so often puts good horses into good positions, and to me that’s a huge key in winning races for riders. I feel like everyone talks about finishing as such a key for being a good rider, but for me, it’s about decisions and giving your horse the best opportunity to run their best. Win or not. And I think Marin does that so well. 

He also seems to be a really nice young man. I’ve gotten to talk with him a few times just chatting, and he comes across very kind but confident. He’s going to ride at Delaware this summer, but I think from there he’ll branch out to many of the other Mid-Atlantic tracks including Colonial and Parx, which are all within a few hours of a Delaware Park base. 

It’s been very fun to watch his success, although I do hope that in the coming years, the rider standings can be a little more competitive. I don’t think it’s healthy for the betting product to have some connections just dominate, but sometimes, that’s just how it goes, and when it happens, you have to congratulate the connections and the successes. And so for that, we congratulate Samuel Marin on his wonderful year and hope he continues his success wherever he rides next. 

Have a great Derby week everyone. We’ll be talking lots of Derby on the podcast and here in the column on Thursday!