YOUNGER BENNETT NAMED TAMPA BAY BREWING COMPANY TRAINER OF MONTH

By Mike Henry —-

OLDSMAR, FL. – Since the start of the current Tampa Bay Downs meeting, trainer Dale Bennett has lost three horses through the claiming box.

That is hardly unusual for the 44-year-old conditioner, who strives to enter his horses in races he believes they are best suited to win, regardless of the accompanying sale price.

“I believe if you always run your horses where they can win, it’s going to lead to good things,” said Bennett, who has been named the Tampa Bay Brewing Company Trainer of the Month after starting the 2016-2017 meeting with eight victories from 18 starters.

“If a horse gets claimed, it gets claimed. That’s the nature of our business,” Bennett said. “You always try to spot your horses in the right place. Horses are creature of habit, and I think if you run a horse over its head too many times, they just get used to losing.

“I like to find horses that like to win. It makes my job easier.”

With a 24-horse stable, Bennett – currently tied for second with Jamie Ness in the Oldsmar win standings – lags behind his father, Gerald Bennett, who has 17 victories from 58 starters. But the similarities between the two far outnumber the differences.

For starters, both are sticklers for details, committed to knowing how each equine athlete in their care is feeling on a day-to-day basis. “One way my dad and I are alike, I think, is that we are hands-on trainers who are very involved,” he said.

The elder Bennett, who turns 73 in March, has transmitted an old-fashioned work ethic to Dale, who briefly considered getting a 9-to-5 job a few years after going to work for his father at the old Detroit Race Course while he was still in high school.

Dale found detailing cars wasn’t overly taxing, except that all he could think about on the job was when the next race would go off.

Dale and his wife Denise, a former jockey, gallop horses in the mornings, and they enjoy grooming their horses and accompanying them on the van ride when it’s time to ship. Their friends know they are even more devoted to their 7-year-old daughter, Haleigh.

His stable has decreased in size, from almost 40 a few years ago to its current roster of Thoroughbred residents, and even a trainer with his rate of success must confront the sport’s changing economic landscape. Usually based at Arlington during the summer, he is thinking about going somewhere new this year because of the uncertainty surrounding Illinois racing.

“We love what we do, but it can be a tough grind,” he said. “You have to keep moving forward and keep your owners happy, and the best way I know to do that is to run their horses where they can win. We’ll just enjoy it while it lasts, keep our feet on the ground and keep plugging away.”

Bennett – who trains recent Turf Dash Stakes runner-up Incensed, a now-4-year-old gelding, for a partnership that includes Denise’s Equiforce, Inc., Steven Simonovic and Michael Martin – has a longstanding relationship with the Savoy Stable operation of Illinois resident John D. Santina. Savoy finished third in last year’s Tampa Bay Downs owner standings with 11 victories.

Morales packs a wallop. Over the past several weeks, jockey Pablo Morales has been visiting Title Boxing Club in the nearby Carrollwood neighborhood to work with personal trainer Obi Okonkwo, an amateur boxer and Mixed Martial arts fighter.

Okonkwo puts the 5-foot-4, 111-pound rider through a vigorous 45-minute workout that includes 3-to-4 rounds of sparring. Morales is spent at the end of each session, but says the regimen has strengthened his core, legs, arms and shoulders and increased his endurance.

“My riding style has kind of always been the same, but now I feel as if I have something left in the tank all the time,” said Morales, second to Daniel Centeno in the jockey standings with 19 victories.
“I don’t want people to get the impression I think I’m a boxer, because I know realistically I’m not. I’m just starting, but as a workout method, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

“Pablo goes 100 percent,” said Okonkwo, who added he would be confident taking him to a fight gym to spar. “He puts more work in than most people. When I swing, I’m not swinging away from him. I swing right at his head.”

For a more detailed look at the off-day activity of Morales, visit the Tampa Bay Downs Facebook page.
Around the oval. Saturday’s 10-race card begins at 12:25 p.m. The day’s festivities begin with track announcer Richard Grunder’s “Morning Glory Club,” featuring trainer Arnaud Delacour, whose (now)-7-year-old gelding A.P. Indian, a dual-Grade I winner, is a finalist for a 2016 Eclipse Award in the Male Sprinter category.

The Eclipse Award winners will be announced Saturday, Jan. 21 at Gulfstream Park.

Delacour also trains graded-stakes winner Divining Rod, the third-place finisher in the 2015 Xpressbet.com Preakness won by American Pharoah, and up-and-coming 3-year-old No Dozing, who is being pointed to the Grade III, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes on the Oldsmar oval’s stakes-laden Festival Preview Day Presented by Lambholm South card on Feb. 11.

The “Morning Glory Club” show begins at 10 a.m. on the first floor of the Grandstand. Attendees receive free coffee and donuts and free admission to the day’s races.

On today’s card, leading jockey Daniel Centeno won two races, giving him 34 for the meeting. He won the sixth race on 5-year-old Florida-bred gelding One Summer Nite, a homebred racing for owner Anthony A. Lenci and trained by Chad Stewart.

Centeno added the eighth race aboard Stapleton, a 3-year-old gelding owned by his breeders, Connie and Richard Snyder, and trained by Wayne Mogge.

Tampa Bay Downs is open every day for simulcast wagering, no-limits poker action and tournament play in The Silks Poker Room and golf fun and instruction at The Downs Golf Practice Facility.