Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Feb. 9, 2026

Jason discusses a maiden event from Tampa on Saturday that might turn out to be the most significant race from the weekend. 

A good Monday morning to you all! Writing this while watching the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, where they’re currently winning 9 to 0 at halftime. Hopefully that score holds up, and we’re celebrating a Hawks win! 

We had a big weekend at Tampa Bay Downs this past Saturday with our annual Sam F. Davis Day card. Renegade scored nicely in the Sam F. Davis, and I think stamped himself as a real contender to make the Kentucky Derby (G1). Todd Pletcher’s assistant stated after the race that the Arkansas Derby (G1) might be the next step for Renegade, so I’ll be curious to see how he goes on. 

Same goes for Zany, who won the Suncoast S. and improved her resume to a perfect 3-for-3. I think there was some expectation coming into the day that she might be the big star of the card coming off her Demoiselle (G2) win. And while she won pretty handily, it certainly wasn’t with the flash that I think a lot of people were expecting, myself included. 

Someone after the race suggested to me that maybe the intent was to teach her some lessons, and after I watched the replay, I found that to be an interesting thought. She was in a bit of a tight spot throughout the first turn and then had to go wide on the second turn. Once she made the lead, she drifted in pretty sharply at one point, so there’s still plenty to work on for her, and certainly she still has some upside. 

What’s funny is, and this often happens on big days, sometimes the race that ends up being the most interesting, isn’t one of the stakes. Rather it was a maiden special weight event that was carded as the sixth race of the day, going a mile and 40 yards on the main track. There were three highly regarded first-time starters in the race including Powershift for Repole Stable and Emerging Market for Chad Brown. 

Throughout the race, I thought that Powershift looked to be in a good spot just in behind the leaders. As he made a decisive move on the turn, I glanced away from my binoculars for a second and to my program because I’d forgotten the name of one of the other horses up front. By the time I got back to my binoculars, I thought Powershift would be all alone on the lead. But someone had joined him, and I quickly realized it was Emerging Market. 

It caught me off guard because he was back in fourth when I glanced at my program, and that couldn’t have been more than a second or so that I was looking away, and he was up there. After watching the replay, I saw how fast he accelerated up to Powershift, who at the time looked like he had made a winning move. 

At that point as those two started to separate themselves, I became aware of what a good race this was shaping up to be. Not only just from a competitive standpoint, but from a figure standpoint and potentially a Derby trail standpoint. One of the cool things that happens sometimes in racing is that there are so often little surprises. But once in a while, you get a big surprise like that maiden race the other day, where you realize as it’s happening, “oh this might be important.” 

Now that I re-read what I just typed, I suppose it shouldn’t be all that surprising to see Chad Brown and Todd Pletcher first-time starters be good. But you know what I mean. I’m very pumped to see where these two horses turn up next. 

Have a great week everyone!