Tampa Bay 2014-15 Meet Kicks Off Nov. 29
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Tampa Bay Downs will open its 89th season Nov. 29 with the first of 89 racing days through May 3. The Oldsmar, Fla., track will have 10 races on its opening day card, including three over the turf.
Among the attractions for horsemen is a stakes schedule offering $2.6 million in purse money. The highlight is the March 7 Festival Day program, which includes the $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby (gr. II) for 3-year-olds; the $200,000 Florida Oaks (gr. IIIT) for 3-year-old fillies over the turf; and the $150,000 Hillsborough Stakes (gr. III) for older fillies and mares.
The Tampa Bay Derby is part of the "Road to the Kentucky Derby Championship Series" points system, with the first four finishers earning 50, 20, 10 and 5 points, respectively, toward a starting-gate berth in Louisville, Ky., on the first Saturday in May.
For several years Tampa Bay's opening day, a Saturday, also has been its annual Cotillion Festival Day with a full card of 2-year-old races. But Gulfstream Park West, the Miami Gardens Fla., track formerly known as Calder Casino & Race Course, has a day of juvenile races scheduled for Nov. 29.
"We did not want a conflict, so we have scheduled Cotillion Day on Dec. 6, our second Saturday," Margo Flynn, Tampa Bay's vice president for marketing and communications, said Nov. 26.
As a result, Flynn said, trainers of Florida's large number of 2-year-olds will have attractive opportunities on back-to-back Saturdays—one in the Tampa Bay area and the second about 240 miles away in the Miami area.
Tampa Bay's Dec. 6 stakes are the $100,000 Inaugural Stakes for juvenile males and the $100,000 Sandpiper Stakes for juvenile fillies. Both are six furlongs on dirt. Post time for the first race is 12:22 p.m. on Nov. 29 and most other days of the meet
Racing Secretary Allison De Luca's list of overnight entries includes 111 horses for the Nov. 29 card, with both the eighth and 10th races over the turf oversubscribed with 14 runners each. A pair of $23,000 races top the Nov. 29 card. The sixth race, a 1 1/16-mile turf condition allowance for older fillies and mares, has drawn a field of 10 horses.
The ninth race, at six furlongs on the main track, will have 12 older horses, including the redoubtable 8-year-old gelding Guam Typhoon from the barn of eight-time leading Tampa Bay Downs trainer Jamie Ness. Guam Typhoon is 16-for-35 lifetime, including three stakes victories.
A number of top jockeys have been named on multiple mounts, including 2013-14 meet champion Antonio Gallardo; last season's runner-up, Ronnie Allen, Jr.; five-time track riding champion Daniel Centeno; and Rosemary Homeister, Jr., a fan favorite who returns to Tampa Bay Downs after spending the last two winters at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark.
The track's jockey colony will be greeted Nov. 29 by a state-of-the-art, high-performance collapsible Duralock rail along the inside of the turf course. Manufactured in the United Kingdom, the Duralock rail is designed to minimize the risk of injury when horses and riders brush against it.
All of Tampa Bay's top nine trainers from last season are returning with large stables, including Ness. Also back are 2013-14 runner-up Gerald Bennett, third-place finisher Kathleen O'Connell, Dale Bennett, who is Gerald's son, Tom Proctor, Jason DaCosta, Dennis Ward, Anthony Granitz, and Arnaud Delacour. .