Photo:

Jason Moran / Eclipse Sportswire

Saturday’s Grade 3, $400,000 Tampa Bay Derby is the second of two stops on the Tampa Bay Downs road to Kentucky Derby 2025, and 50-25-15-10-5 qualifying points are available to the top five finishers.

The signature race at Tampa drew a field of seven 3-year-olds who will go 1 1/16 miles. Six of them already have run on the Kentucky Derby trail, and five have earned qualifying points. There are three stakes winners in the field, including Chancer McPatrick who picked up 10 points when he won the Champagne (G1) as a 2-year-old.

Here is the analysis for the Tampa Bay Derby with morning-line odds from the Horse Racing Nation staff. It is scheduled as race 11 on a 12-race card with post time set for 5:34 p.m. EST.

1. Owen Almighty, 7-2. Speightstown – Brian Lynch / Irad Ortiz Jr. – 5: 2-2-0 – $274,310. Owen Almighty crossed the finish line in first or second in all five of his starts. In June he was a debut winner at Churchill Downs as the 7-5 favorite. He won the Juvenile at Ellis Park in August by almost five lengths as an odds-on favorite. In the first race on the Derby trail, the Iroquois (G3), Owen Almighty was second. He came back to make his first start of 2025 in the Pasco at Tampa, where he was disqualified from first to fifth. Last seen in the Sam F. Davis, he was second the entire race and now has earned 15 Derby points. Lynch won the Tampa Derby in 2022 with Classic Causeway, and he was ridden by Ortiz. Win contender.

2. Chancer McPatrick, 9-5. McKinzie – Chad Brown / Flavien Prat – 4: 3-0-0 – $535,000. Chancer McPatrick will make his first start of the year after finishing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at odds of 2-1. Those short odds were based on his undefeated record from his first three starts for Chad Brown. He debuted at Saratoga as the favorite and rallied from 10th. He then won the Hopeful and Champagne, the two most prestigious Grade 1s for 2-year-olds in New York, with last-to-first rallies. He earned 10 Derby points from the Champagne. Brown won the Tampa Derby last year with Domestic Product. Blinkers go on. Top choice.

3. Hill Road, 4-1. Quality Road – Chad Brown / Tyler Gaffalione – 3: 1-0-1 – $191,496. Hill Road shipped to the Breeders’ Cup from Ireland to move from turf to dirt and ran in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He won his first start as a 2-year-old at Leopardstown and then was seventh in a Group 1 at the Curragh. He will make his first start since running third at Del Mar at 61-1 to earn 9 Derby points. Hill Road stayed in America and will now make his first start in 2025 with Chad Brown as the trainer. Blinkers go on. Win contender.

4. Brodeur, 12-1. Nyquist – Mark Casse / Jose Ortiz – 3: 2-0-0 – $145,278. Brodeur won his last two starts on wet and sealed tracks at Oaklawn. He used early speed to break his maiden in December and then stretched out to 1 1/16 miles with first-time Lasix. Casse won this race in 2012 and 2021. Toss.

5. Filoso, 15-1. City of Light – Chad Summers / Dylan Davis – 4: 1-0-1 – $120,875. Filoso will be making his first start of 2025 and his third start on the Kentucky Derby trail. He broke his maiden at Saratoga in his second start and then moved onto the Derby trail to finish third in the Breeders’ Futurity (G1), where he earned 3 Derby points. He last was seen running third in the Kentucky Jockey Club (G2). Jockey John Velazquez won the Tampa Derby in 2013 and 2015. Blinkers go on. Use underneath.

6. Naughty Rascal, 20-1. Rogueish – Gerald Bennett / Samy Camacho – 7: 4-1-1 – $224,630. Naughty Rascal is the most experienced horse in the field and has the most wins with four. The Florida-bred broke his maiden at first asking against state-breds at Gulfstream Park and then moved on to make six starts in open-company stakes. He won twice more at Gulfstream sprinting and then in a mile turf race. At Tampa he was second in the Inaugural and was moved up to first in the Pasco by disqualification. In the Sam F. Davis he finished outside of the top three for the only time in his career. Long shot to use underneath.

7. Patch Adams, 2-1. Into Mischief – Brad Cox / Florent Geroux – 3: 1-0-1 – $132,125. Patch Adams drew attention when he broke his maiden in his second start by more than 10 lengths at Churchill in November. He moved onto the Derby trail in the Southwest (G3), where once again he was an odds-on favorite. In that field of nine he made a middle move to get to second but flattened out to finish fourth and picked up 4 Derby points. Win contender.

Smmary: The Tampa Bay Derby is yet another race on the road to the Kentucky Derby with a small field. Top trainers Chad Brown, Brad Cox and Mark Casse have four of the horses, and they will take the bulk of the wagering dollars. It is hard to look beyond their runners for the winner, but there are a couple of long shots who can be considered for use underneath in the trifecta.

Chancer McPatrick will be my top choice going back to his pair of prestigious Grade 1 victories in the Hopeful and the Champagne. His sixth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile was disappointing, but he has the bloodlines to handle the two turns in the Tampa Derby. I also will use Filoso and Naughty Rascal with their big odds in the third spot in the trifecta.