Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Mar. 9, 2026

Jason discusses his day at Tampa Bay Downs and the Tampa Bay Derby (G3). 

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope everyone had a good weekend and are enjoying the extra hour of sunshine. Unless you’re in Arizona of course!

I’m a morning person, but I will admit it was tough losing that hour of sleep after Tampa Bay Derby Day because I was exhausted afterwards. Big days are their own unique form of tiring. I realize I just sit around the booth all day, but it’s the adrenaline ups and downs that eventually make you so tired when it’s all over. 

Saturday’s card at Tampa overall went OK, although having to take a couple of races off of the turf certainly hurt the handle and a bit of the morale of the day. I understand surface changes happen, and it rained the night before and right before the Tampa Bay Derby (G3) But they are frustrating for the track, the connections, and of course the horseplayer. So late surface changes always bring down a day just because I know they’re so frustrating to so many people. 

The day started out pretty formful on the undercard, and it appeared the track was very much playing to frontrunners and inside speed as the first two races went gate to wire. The third and fourth races were both won from just off the pace, but both were very close and in the case of Disruptor’s win in the Challenger S. (G3), he was sitting second behind a 99-1 shot who seemed intent on the lead. 

I thought the Challenger might have been the best performance of the entire day, all things considered. Disruptor ran really big and turned away Disco Time, who loomed up after him and looked like he might go by at the top of the stretch. But Disruptor not only battled back to win; he ended up winning by a length in the end, and I know the Speed figures came back quite good. 

One interesting thing about the Tampa Bay Derby this year was the rain immediately before it. The track received some rain the night before and was lightning fast to start the card. I wonder if the rain that fell for the half hour before the Tampa Bay Derby ended up possibly slowing the track down? 

Because it certainly did seem to shift the profile a bit for the Derby and the last race, both of which featured come-from-behind winners. I know the initial Speed figures that came out were adjusted down after the fact, so it might be that we don’t know the true value of the effort given that the track may have changed a fair bit after that rain. 

The Puma ended up breaking his maiden with his win, and I thought that all three of the top finishers ran quite well. During the live call of the race, I hadn’t really noticed how tight things got for Canaletto in the stretch. The Puma certainly made things tight for him and after watching the head on, I’m a tiny bit surprised the inquiry light didn’t come on. However, I don’t think there should have been a change made after watching the replays. It was just tight racing and good riding by Javier Castellano. 

Further Ado of course can move forward off of his three year-old debut, and I’d think they’ll give him a try in one of the bigger preps in the coming weeks. The jump from two to three is a big one because everyone else has grown up a fair bit, including the horses you maybe had already beaten. So if he doesn’t take another step forward, he might have just gotten passed by many of his classmates. 

It seems as though with the defection of Ted Noffey, there just isn’t a huge frontrunner yet in this year’s races. It doesn’t feel as though Bob Baffert’s hand is as strong as in past years so maybe that does make it feel more wide open? Obviously more and more questions will be answered each week as we move forward. This week we shift up to Colonial Downs for the Virginia Derby, and we’ll be talking about that a lot on my podcast this week, including a visit with the gentleman who will call the Virginia Derby, and the Kentucky Derby (G1), Travis Stone. 

Have a great week everyone!