WINTER FUN JUST GETTING STARTED; ALLEN RIDES THREE WINNERS

By Mike Henry —-

OLDSMAR, FL. – Major stakes days and special events start popping at a rapid-fire rate on Saturday, when Tampa Bay Downs holds its annual Skyway Festival Day program.

A collection of talented 3-year-old Thoroughbreds of both sexes will be in the spotlight as their owners and trainers seek to determine whether a steady diet of stakes competition is in their futures. The card will feature the $100,000 Pasco Stakes for colts and geldings and the $100,000 Gasparilla Stakes for fillies. Both races will be contested on the main dirt track at a distance of seven furlongs.

Also scheduled is the $50,000 Wayward Lass Stakes for older fillies and mares at a distance of a mile-and-a-sixteenth.

The following Saturday, while the racing world turns its focus to Gulfstream Park for the inaugural running of the $12-million Pegasus World Cup and a possible Arrogate-California Chrome rematch, the Oldsmar oval presents its popular Cap Giveaway Day, featuring a sky-blue-and-white cap with the distinctive track logo. The brims will be distributed to all patrons with paid admission, while supplies last.

Tampa Bay Downs jockeys will be available to autograph the caps throughout much of the afternoon on the first floor of the Grandstand.

Many of those same riders – or, perhaps more specifically, their agents – will then spend most of the next two weeks angling for a mount or three in one of the graded stakes on the Feb. 11 Festival Preview Day Presented by Lambholm South card, featuring four stakes worth a combined $650,000 in purse money.

The centerpiece of the day is the Grade III, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes, a mile-and-a-sixteenth race for 3-year-olds that has been restored to the Road to the Kentucky Derby points series, a group of races leading to the 143rd edition of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands on May 6 at Churchill Downs in Louisville. The winner of the Sam F. Davis will earn 10 qualifying points toward a spot in the 20-horse Kentucky Derby field, with the next three finishers earning 4, 2 and 1.
The Sam F. Davis is the main prep race for the Grade II, $350,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby on March 11.

Also scheduled on Feb. 11 are a pair of Grade III turf races – the $150,000 Lambholm South Endeavour for older fillies and mares and the $150,000 Tampa Bay Stakes for older horses – and the $100,000 Suncoast Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on the main track.

Mark Casse, the trainer of the marvelous 2015 Eclipse Award Champion Turf Female, Tepin, has indicated she will make her 6-year-old debut in the Endeavour, a race she won last year.

The following day, Sunday, Feb. 12, is the first of the Oldsmar oval’s “Kids and Family Days” celebrations in the Backyard Picnic Area, just north of the paddock. Youngsters get to enjoy pony rides, bounce houses and a variety of games and special activities, while children of all ages can have their picture taken with the track mascot, Mouse the Miniature Horse.

Subsequent Kids and Family Days will be held Feb. 26, March 5 and March 19.

February’s bonanza of family entertainment keeps rolling the weekend of Feb. 18-19 with the seventh annual Golfest extravaganza at The Downs Golf Practice Facility. Players of all handicap levels can sample the newest equipment from major manufacturers, register to win prizes and take part in a series of fun events comprising the “Back Nine Challenge.”

Free lessons are available and some of the sport’s most recognizable personalities will be on hand.
Click on the link below for a full schedule of the track’s 2016-2017 special event days.

http://www.tampabaydowns.com/visitor-information/event-calendars

Around the oval. Jockey Ronnie Allen, Jr., moved into third place in the track standings by riding three winners on today’s card. He has 19 victories for the meeting.

Allen, a four-time Tampa Bay Downs riding champion, scored in the second race on 7-year-old Florida-bred mare Spanish Concert for owner James M. Chicklo and trainer Kathleen O’Connell. Allen added the third race aboard Taipan’s Advantage, a 5-year-old Florida-bred gelding bred and owned by Lorna Possler and trained by Gerald Bennett.

Taipan’s Advantage was claimed from the race by trainer Julie Robillard for new owner Bruno Schickedanz.

In the seventh race, the Cody’s Original Roadhouse Race of the Week at five furlongs on the turf, Allen hustled 4-year-old filly Coco as in Chanel to the front, withstood a challenge from his brother Mike Allen on long shot It’s Easy to Say approaching the turn and had plenty left to win in 56.63 seconds. Coco as in Chanel is trained by Tom Proctor and owned by Heider Family Stables.

Proctor didn’t wait long to win again, capturing the eighth race with first-time starter Longwing Lily, a 4-year-old filly owned by Timothy B. Turney. Jesus Castanon was aboard.

In the sixth race, the six-furlong Pelican Prep, 4-year-old gelding Futile stamped himself as a leading candidate for the $100,000 Pelican Stakes on Feb. 18 with an impressive 1-length score from a fast-charging Tiger Blood. The 7-5 favorite, Springmeier, finished third. Futile sped the distance in 1:09.91 under leading jockey Daniel Centeno.

Futile is now 4-for-5 in his career, having progressed smartly through his conditions with the only slip up a third-place finish in a conditional allowance at Delaware in August. He was making his first start since Nov. 12. Arnaud Delacour trains the winner for the Lael Stables of Futile’s breeders and owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson.

Futile is by Broken Vow out of Stormy Kiss, an Argentine-bred mare who won the Grade II Honorable Miss for the Jackson’s in 2006 at Saratoga.

“He broke out a little bit, and I had to use him some early,” said Centeno. “Then he really grabbed the bit, and that’s why we were closer early than I expected. At the quarter-mile pole, I felt like I had a lot of horse. He got a little tired at the end, but it was his first race over the track and I never felt any pressure.

“If they let me ride him again, I’ll ride him,” Centeno said of a possible return in the Pelican.
Thoroughbred racing resumes here Wednesday with a 10-race card beginning at 12:25 p.m. Tampa Bay Downs conducts Thoroughbred racing each Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with a trio of Thursday cards scheduled Feb. 9, 16 and 23.

The track 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.