NEXT SUNDAY’S FLORIDA CUP IS ALL ABOUT CREATING MEMORIES

By Mike Henry —-

OLDSMAR, FL. – The 2020-2021 Tampa Bay Downs stakes schedule wraps up Sunday, March 28 with the 18th annual Florida Cup, a six-race celebration of the Sunshine State’s excellence in breeding, raising and racing champion Thoroughbreds.

The Florida Cup is for registered Florida-breds, with each race offering a guaranteed purse of $110,000. With the day’s other races included, the track is expected to offer more than $750,000 in total purse money.

Three Florida Cup races will be contested on the main track and three on the turf course at a variety of distances, offering golden opportunities for stakes glory for both sprinters and distance horses. A number of top jockeys from south Florida are expected, intent on giving the local colony all it can handle.

The main-track stakes are the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Sophomore, for 3-year-olds going 7 furlongs; the Stonehedge Farm South Sophomore Fillies, for 3-year-old fillies at 7 furlongs; and the NYRABETS Sprint, for horses 4-years-old-and-upward at 6 furlongs.

The turf stakes include the Equistaff Sophomore Turf, for 3-year-olds at a mile-and-a-sixteenth; the Pleasant Acres Stallions Distaff Turf, for fillies and mares 3-and-upward at a mile-and-a-sixteenth; and the Grey Goose Turf Classic, for horses 4-and-upward at a mile-and-an-eighth.

Cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Florida Cup has proven to be a launching pad to greatness for some horses and a crown jewel in the career of others.

World Approval perhaps best exemplifies the potential inherent in so many well-bred Florida horses, as the son of Northern Afleet won the 2015 Sophomore Turf in his fourth career start and two years later won the Turf Classic, his first race in a 5-year-old campaign that culminated in a Breeders’ Cup Mile victory and recognition as the 2017 Eclipse Award Champion Turf Male.

Raymond Mamone’s Imperial Hint was another Florida Cup winner who scaled the sport’s heights. In 2016, he captured the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Sophomore in his second lifetime start in a time, 1:22.15, that was .02 seconds off the stakes record.

The son of Imperialism developed into a national player the following year, winning four stakes before his second-place finish in the TwinSpires Breeders’ Cup Sprint. He returned to Oldsmar the following spring to win the Florida Cup Sprint, kick-starting a two-year run of excellence that resulted in five graded-stakes victories, including four Grade Is, at Belmont Park and Saratoga.

But it isn’t just the Grade I winners who have made the Florida Cup an event to be cherished. Other lasting memories include:

· In 2008, less than a year after being inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, jockey Javier Castellano won a record four Florida Cup races, including the Sprint on Imperial Hint. And despite having a plane to catch, Castellano took time to answer reporters’ questions and sign autographs before departing.

· In 2012, the 4-year-old filly It’s Me Mom took on the boys in the Sprint and not only won, she set the 6-furlong track record of 1:08.67 that still stands – that despite the fact a lot of veteran observers believe the Tampa Bay Downs dirt surface plays faster now than it did then.

· In 2013, two years after capturing his fourth Oldsmar jockeys title, Ronnie Allen, Jr., staged a “you had to see it to believe it” stretch rally on Hooh Why for the Grade I-winning millionaire 7-year-old mare’s 12th and final career victory and her second consecutive Distaff Turf triumph..

· How fast was Manicero? Fast enough to win the 2011 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Sophomore in 1:22.13, which is still the stakes record, for owner Leo Azpurua, Sr., trainer Leo Azpurua, Jr., and jockey Paco Lopez. Manicero had won the Inaugural Stakes and Pasco Stakes earlier that season.

· In 2017, long-time Florida Cup sponsor Stonehedge Farm South, which has campaigned too many top-quality Florida-breds to remember, broke its Florida Cup dry spell with a victory in the Sophomore Turf by Muggsamatic, with Kathleen O’Connell saddling the 23-1 shot.

Tickets to the 18th annual Florida Cup are being sold online on the track website, www.tampabaydowns.com , and at the Customer Service booth on the first floor of the Grandstand on racing days. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, fans must have a pre-purchased ticket to attend.

General admission tickets are $10, plus a service fee if purchased online. Picnic Area tables are also available for $50, which covers the cost of admission for six fans.

Around the oval. Gambling Cat, a 3-year-old filly from the barn of trainer Michael Maker, rolled to a 1-length victory in today’s featured fifth race on the turf. Daniel Centeno was aboard Gambling Cat in the 1-mile allowance/optional claiming contest for Maker and owner Repole Stable.

Pace-setter Agog finished second and Entwine was third. Now 2-for-5, Gambling Cat – a daughter of Kitten’s Joy out of the Capote mare Cardinalli – completed the distance in 1:37.20.

Huber Villa-Gomez rode back-to-back winners today. In the sixth race, he was aboard first-time starter Cumberland Avenue, a 3-year-old gelding, for breeder-owner Charles H. Deters and trainer Jordan Blair. Villa-Gomez added the seventh on the turf with 5-year-old Florida-bred mare Donnameup for owner Robert A. Baker and trainer Ian Hemingway.

Jose Batista also rode two winners, taking over uncontested possession of fifth place in the standings with 30 victories. Batista won the third race on the turf with Remarkable Silver, a 4-year-old Florida-bred filly bred and owned by Patricia A. Generazio and trained by Luis Carvajal, Jr. Batista added the eighth race on Battle Rags, a 4-year-old colt owned and trained by Juan Arriagada.

Thoroughbred racing continues Wednesday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:15 p.m. Tampa Bay Downs races on a Wednesday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule, except for Easter Sunday, April 4, when the track is closed. Otherwise, the track is open every day for simulcast wagering, no-limits action and tournament play in The Silks Poker Room and golf fun and instruction at The Downs Golf Practice Facility.

.