Copper Creek

Copper Creek was born in Cream Ridge, New Jersey — a rural community in Monmouth County, the area of New Jersey where horse racing has its deepest roots. Monmouth Park, the historic racetrack where Servis trains, is in the same county. Copper Creek is a Jersey horse in the fullest sense: bred here, owned by Jersey people, trained by a Jersey trainer.

His pedigree carries genuine classic credentials. Tiz the Law, his sire, won the 2020 Belmont Stakes and was widely considered the best three-year-old of his year — in a pandemic-shortened Triple Crown series, he dominated until Authentic beat him in a Kentucky Derby run in September rather than May. Tiz the Law is by Constitution, himself by Tapit — the most important American distance sire of his generation.

Cooper's Run, the dam by Malibu Moon, adds a speed dimension. Malibu Moon is a son of A.P. Indy who has become an excellent sire of horses that combine tactical quickness with the ability to sustain their effort. The Tiz the Law–Malibu Moon cross gives Copper Creek the theoretical tools for the Derby: a sire with demonstrated classic aptitude, a dam's sire with proven speed influence.

He won the Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct — the New York path that has sent Derby horses to Churchill Downs for generations. Servis prepared him without drama, without fanfare, with the focused patience of someone who has been to this dance before and knows that preparation is everything he can control.

Jason Servis grew up around horses in the Monmouth Park community of central New Jersey — a world where trainers, grooms, jockeys, and owners form a tightly knit horsemen's community built around the summer race meet at the historic shore track. He became a trainer and built his reputation at Monmouth Park and the New York-New Jersey circuit, developing a string of horses that competed at the graded stakes level.

Maximum Security made him famous and then made him infamous, simultaneously. The horse was the best three-year-old Servis had ever trained — a powerful, fearless horse who won by dominating his opponents. The 2019 Derby disqualification was a wound that the racing community has argued about ever since. Some believe it was the right call. Others believe the sport made a catastrophic error that day.

Servis trained horses without interruption after 2019, continuing his work with the focus of a professional who does not let setbacks define him. Copper Creek is his return to the Derby stage — a different horse on a different day, but the same trainer with the same methodical approach and the same knowledge of what this race can give and what it can take away.

Edgard Zayas was born in Havana, Cuba, and came to the United States as a teenager — part of the generation of Cuban athletes who navigated the complex process of defecting or emigrating to pursue professional careers in American sports. He arrived with a love of horses and a talent for riding that he had developed in Cuba, where horse racing exists in a different form but remains part of the culture.

He established himself at Gulfstream Park in Florida, where he became a reliable presence in the jockey colony and developed relationships with major trainers in the Florida circuit. His strength is his ability to navigate traffic — to find holes in the pack in the stretch that other riders miss — and his comfort on both dirt and turf surfaces.

He rides regularly at Churchill Downs during the Kentucky spring meet and has won stakes races on the Louisville track. His experience at the venue is a genuine asset for Copper Creek in a 20-horse field where knowing where you are and where you need to be in the final turn is the difference between a winning ride and a frustrating one.

Head of Plains Partners is a New Jersey-based racing syndicate rooted in the community around Monmouth Park — trainers, former trainers, businesspeople who have been connected to the track for years. They are the kind of owners who know the game, who understand that racing is long on heartbreak and short on guaranteed outcomes, and who keep coming back because the relationship between a person and a good horse is worth it.

They connected with Servis naturally — he trains at Monmouth Park, they are part of the Monmouth Park community — and invested in Copper Creek when they saw a New Jersey-bred horse with genuine potential and a trainer who knew what to do with him. The New Jersey racing community has a fierce pride in its horses and its people, and a Jersey-bred winning the Kentucky Derby would be one of the great moments in the state's racing history.

For Head of Plains Partners, today is also a moment of solidarity with Servis — with a trainer they know and trust, who has been through the hardest moment a trainer can experience at Churchill Downs, and who is back here today because good horses keep calling you back.