The euphoria of winning her first race ever at Saratoga Race Course quickly doubled for jockey Katie Davis.
And then it tripled.
As ecstatic as the 31-year-old rider felt after taking the third race July 28 with River Tay for her maiden victory at the famed Spa, she experienced that winning sensation the next day and then the day after that.
A winner of 15 races this year from a little more than 200 mounts prior to the weekend of July 29-30, Davis closed out the third weekend of action at Saratoga by winning races on three straight days and in the process earning some coveted bragging rights with two other riders in her immediate family, her husband Trevor McCarthy, and sister, Jacqueline.
“I’m on top of the world right now. It’s kind of crazy to let it all soak in and understand it,” said Davis, a daughter of former New York rider Robbie Davis, who has been riding since 2013 and has 274 wins in her career with $8.5 million in earnings. “It’s unbelievable and amazing on my part.”
Joe Migliore, the agent for both Katie Davis and McCarthy, said what Davis has already accomplished at the Spa this year rates as the top showing by a female rider since the heyday of Rosie Napravnik in 2014.
“Saratoga in the summertime is the toughest riding colony in the world and for her to win three races in a week is a dream come true,” Migliore said.
Davis overcame the odds stacked against her when River Tay prevailed in a wild, five-horse photo finish in the July 28 $75,000 maiden claimer on the turf. Not only was the daughter of U S Navy Flag a 9-1 shot, but Davis dropped her crop and still managed to coax the filly into winning by a neck, holding off stiff challenges from horses ridden by the Ortiz brothers, Jose and Irad Jr., Florent Geroux, and Manny Franco.
“It was an interesting ride because I dropped my stick,” she said. “I actually dropped it and caught it in midair and then dropped it again. So I picked her up and hand rode her home, and we got there in a five-horse stretch duel. It wasn’t my ideal race but things happen for a reason and we won and that’s all that matters. I was kind of embarrassed when I got back but then (jockey) Joel Rosario reminded me that I won and that was all that mattered.”
Davis was also happy to win the race for trainer Bruce Brown, who was one of her supporters in 2021-22 when she successfully waged a campaign to repeal a New York State Gaming Commission rule that did not allow husbands and wives—such as Davis and McCarthy—to ride in the same race.
“Bruce has been a big supporter of mine,” she said. “I have really wanted to get a win for him and to get it with my first win at Saratoga, that was very special.”
The next day, Davis won the 11th race with Queens Dancer for trainer Linda Dixon in a race that pitted her against her sister Jacqueline, who was riding the 7-5 favorite Sandy’s Garden . Queens Dancer had led from the start when Sandy’s Garden moved alongside in midstretch, but as the two fillies and two sisters battled in the final eighth of a mile, it was Katie and her 13-1 longshot who prevailed by a half-length.
Katie Davis and Queens Dancer win at Saratoga Race Course
“I heard Jackie come up the inside on me and I said, ‘You can come. Let the best horse win.’ After the race she called me a little (expletive),” Katie said with a chuckle about a race believed to be the first at 160-year-old Saratoga with sisters finishing 1-2.
Adding some salt to her sister’s wound, Jackie was named to ride Queens Dancer but opted to ride Sandy’s Garden when the allowance race for New York state-breds was switched from turf to the main track.
“I wasn’t sure if I should take the mount because I was finished after the sixth race and it was a long wait,” Davis said. “I decided to stick around, and Jackie kidded me after the race about not wanting to stay for the race.”
On the July 30 card, Davis ran her winning streak to three straight days when she motored past her husband in the stretch in the eighth race of the day. McCarthy had forged to the front in the stretch on Mudville Nine but his mount could not keep pace when Davis and Sackatoga Stables’ Leftembehind surged past them en route to a four-length win over her husband in the maiden claimer.
“We had some good laughs about that,” said Davis, whose streak ended Aug. 2 with two losing rides.
The entire Davis family, which includes brother Dylan, one of the top year-round riders on the New York Racing Association circuit, also joined in the good-nature kidding about what’s next for Katie.
“They were telling Dylan to watch it because I was coming for him next,” Katie said. “He told me if I beat him, don’t drop my stick. He would be really pissed if I did that and beat him.”
Katie Davis and Funny How win the Broadway Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack
For Davis, balancing life as a jockey and mother to her 19-month-old daughter Riley can be tricky at times but she’s thankful for the increased opportunities she has received at the meet and throughout the year. She has three wins—the same number as Hall of Famer John Velazquez—from 19 starts at the Spa through Aug. 1 after riding in just one race at the 2022 meet.
“She really broke out in the late winter and early spring and showed that she can ride with the best of them in this colony and that she belongs. She certainly has the talent. It just took a little time to get the opportunities to show it and now that she has she has gotten some very nice support from trainers like Ray Handal, who has put her on some nice horses and a stakes winner in Funny How . I think that opened people’s eyes to what she can do and that she belongs,” Migliore said.
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