DREAMING OF SNOW SET TO “DO HER OWN THING” IN GRADE III FLORIDA OAKS

By Mike Henry —-

DREAMING OF SNOW SET TO “DO HER OWN THING” IN GRADE III FLORIDA OAKS

OLDSMAR, FL. – In her shocking 38-1 upset victory against Eclipse Award Champion 2-Year-Old Filly Wonder Wheel here four weeks ago in the Suncoast Stakes, trainer Gerald Bennett’s Florida-bred Dreaming of Snow displayed a tenacity through the stretch that reminded him of his childhood pet, a mongrel dog named Skip.

“My brother Carmen and I had the only two paper routes in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, and we’d take our dog with us,” Bennett said, reflecting back 65 years. “We’d do it in the morning before school and finish after school.

“When the (neighborhood) dogs would come out and chase us, they knew our dog was out there, and he’d go over and whip their a–. After a while, they wouldn’t go out there anymore. They’d see us coming and go around the other way.”

One victory, no matter how impressive, does not cement a reputation, and Dreaming of Snow has much to prove in Saturday’s Grade III, $200,000 Florida Oaks, where she will face 11 other sophomore fillies in the mile-and-a-sixteenth event on the Tampa Bay Downs turf course. The Florida Oaks is the 10th race on a 12-race Festival Day 43 card beginning at 11:55 a.m.

Saturday’s main event, of course, is the Grade III, $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby, a mile-and-a-sixteenth race on dirt for 3-year-olds that is a “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points race, with 50, 20, 15, 10 and 5 Run for the Roses qualifying points going to the first five finishers.

The Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby, which is the 11th race and should go off around 5:15 p.m., is a 12-horse duel, with trainer Todd Pletcher’s Tapit Trice and jockey Luis Saez the 8-5 morning-line favorites and Pletcher stablemate Shesterkin and Edgard Zayas 9-2 second choices.

Tapit Trice drew the No. 6 post position and Shesterkin will start from the No. 9.

Speaking of odds, the Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby also concludes an “all-stakes” 50-cent Pick 5 beginning with the seventh race – the $75,000 Columbia Stakes, for 3-year-olds on the grass – and continuing with the Grade III, $100,000 Michelob Ultra Challenger, the Grade II, $225,000 Hillsborough on the grass, the Florida Oaks and the Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby.

Although there is no Wonder Wheel for Dreaming of Snow to contend with in the Florida Oaks, the depth of competition appears greater than in the Suncoast, with trainer Chad Brown’s Free Look the 2-1 morning-line favorite and Dreaming of Snow one of three co-fourth choices at 8-1. The Florida Oaks also marks Dreaming of Snow’s first turf try after posting three victories from five starts on the dirt.

Regardless of the questions, Bennett expects Dreaming of Snow and jockey Samy Camacho to take the fight to her competition.

“She never backs off in her workouts,” said Bennett. “She worked in company (last Saturday) with Lookin’ Super, our 3-year-old gelding who broke his maiden going 7 furlongs in 1:22 and change, and she just ran away and hid from him. (The Suncoast) didn’t take much out of her. When she came back to the winner’s circle, she was breathing so easy she wouldn’t have blown out a match.”

As for the turf question, “All the ones by her sire, Jess’s Dream (a son of Curlin), that have been running here on the grass are doing really great. Alexa’s Dream (a 4-year-old Florida-bred filly), who we claimed a few races back, won a starter allowance going a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the turf and made a monster run (Wednesday) but got too far back early and finished third at a flat mile.

“So, you’re concerned Dreaming of Snow doesn’t handle the grass for whatever reason, but you’ve got to go in there and try it,” said Bennett, the perennial leading Oldsmar trainer who is bidding for his first Florida Oaks victory.

The conditioner, who also considered the Grade III, mile-and-a-sixteenth Fantasy Stakes on April 1 at Oaklawn Park for Dreaming of Snow’s next start, wants Camacho to let the filly be herself Saturday, in the parlance of a horse trying to get from the No. 5 post position to the wire ahead of the rest. She led every step of the way in the Suncoast, and might try to do so again.

“It (over-thinking the possible pace scenarios) is how you get yourself beat,” Bennett said. “Everybody says ‘look at this speed in here, look at that speed,’ and you start changing your mind and tell the jock to see how it unfolds.

“Well, who’s got time to watch all those signals and traffic lights, and a hole just opened up and you missed it? Just let her do her own thing, and if we get beat say we weren’t good enough and that’s it,” Bennett said.

While Pletcher appears to have a strong one-two punch in the Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby, trainers Mark Casse and Saffie A. Joseph, Jr., each have two horses entered. Casse sends out the Florida-bred gelding Classic Car Wash, who finished third here on Feb. 11 in the Grade III Sam F. Davis Stakes, and 2-year-old Grade III winner Champions Dream, who tired and was eased in the Sam F. Davis but had finished second in the Pasco Stakes in his previous start.

Emisael Jaramillo rides Classic Car Wash and Antonio Gallardo is on Champions Dream.

Joseph will start Lord Miles, who finished sixth in the Grade III Holy Bull Stakes on Feb. 4 at Gulfstream, and Prairie Hawk, who faded to ninth in the Sam F. Davis. They will break from the Nos. 1 and 12 posts, respectively, with Paco Lopez riding Lord Miles and Camacho on Prairie Hawk.

The mile-and-an-eighth Hillsborough has seven entrants, three from the barn of trainer Chad Brown, who has won the race five times, including last year with Bleecker Street. Brown has this year’s morning-line favorite in 5-year-old mare Shantisara, a Grade I winner who will be ridden by Irad Ortiz, Jr.

Also appearing formidable are 4-year-old filly Surprisingly and jockey Paco Lopez, who won the Grade III Endeavour Stakes here on the turf on Feb. 4.

Skippylongstocking, a 4-year-old colt trained by Joseph, is the 8-5 morning-line favorite for the Michelob Ultra Challenger at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the main track. Irad Ortiz, Jr., is the jockey. Skippylongstocking, who breaks from the No. 2 post, won the Grade III Harlan’s Holiday Stakes on Dec. 31 at Gulfstream and was a middle-of-the-road seventh four weeks later in the Grade I Pegasus World Cup Invitational presented by Baccarat.

Also in the 10-horse Michelob Ultra Challenger field is 4-year-old colt Classic Causeway, who won both the Sam F. Davis Stakes and the Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby last year. Now trained by Ken McPeek, Classic Causeway will be ridden by Julien Leparoux, who was aboard for his Grade I Caesars Belmont Derby Invitational score last summer at Belmont Park.

There are 10 3-year-old males entered in the Columbia Stakes, to be contested at a mile on the grass. The morning-line 3-1 favorite is trainer John P. Terranova, II’s colt Freedom Trail, a stakes winner on grass who has not competed since an off-the-board finish on Nov. 26 in the Grade II Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes on the main track at Churchill Downs. Freedom Trail and Irad Ortiz, Jr., will break from the No. 1 post position.

Bush is Boot Barn Jockey of the Month. In Sunday’s seventh race on the turf, a maiden claiming event for horses 4-years-old-and-upward, jockey Vernon Bush on Distorted Times thought he would have to settle for second when Takeover Kash challenged from the outside with a full head of momentum.

But Bush hasn’t been competing for the better part of the last 45 years without learning a few tricks to rescue victory from apparent defeat.

“I took my horse out to him so he would be competitive and (Takeover Kash) got by me, but he came in and bumped my horse a couple of times. When he did that, it got my horse mad, and he got aggressive and came back,” Bush said.

The photo-finish camera showed Distorted Times a nose winner, the second 25-1 shot victory on the card for the 61-year-old Bush. Both Distorted Times and first-race winner Delta Ridge are owned by Michael H. Rhodes and trained by Jennifer Quinones, whom Bush rode against in the 1980s at Rockingham Park in the 1980s.

Bush, who also won a race here on March 1, has traveled a path laden with potholes, many of his own making. He has made a concerted effort the last two years to turn his life around, and one result is his selection as the Boot Barn Jockey of the Month, as much for his perseverance as his recent record.

He found it fitting that his March 1 victory came on a 3-year-old filly named Train Wreck, because “that was my life. It was a disaster.” Long known as one of the top jockeys in New England, winning six riding titles at Suffolk Downs in Boston and four at Rockingham, Bush struggled with alcohol and drug addictions throughout much of his career.

Things came to a head two years ago when he found himself sleeping on a deflated air mattress in a tack room, unsure how to reverse his descent. Desperate, he called his sister Ruthanne Wheatley in Kentucky to request help. She flew to Tampa and got him started on a journey to full sobriety, reviving his belief in himself.

“I got sober April 4, 2021, and ever since that day my life has gone straight up,” said Bush, who tries to attend five Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week. “It’s just been an unbelievable ride. I have the desire to be back out here, just like I did when I was first coming to the racetrack and learning to gallop.

“I wake up before the alarm at 4 o’clock, get dressed, get my coffee and read Alcoholics Anonymous devotionals. Then I go out and start my day positive and make sure I end it positive, no matter what happens in the middle,” he said.

Bush added a victory to his ledger in today’s eighth race on 6-year-old horse Well Connected for owner Carla March and trainer William E. March.

Bush’s journey back to himself has been noticed throughout the Thoroughbred racing industry. Last month, he won the Randy Romero “Pure Courage” Award, honoring the memory of the late Hall of Fame member. Bush, who received 77 percent of the votes cast on Facebook in a field of six finalists, will accept the award on March 26 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.

Like Romero, Bush, who had ridden 3,251 career winners, incurred numerous physical setbacks during the latter stages of his career. A broken right ankle, a fractured left hip that led to a hip replacement and a broken left femur contributed to his not riding from the summer of 2018 until March of last year.

But Bush never lost his passion for being horseback, even when it was clouded by poor life choices. He knows his best days as a jockey are long past, but still feels a desire to compete.

“I’m physically and mentally in one piece. I have the respect of people again and I have my own self-respect back – and dignity. It’s an amazing life, and I never realized it. I live one day at a time and try to make it the best day possible, and if I can help someone else, that’s even better.”

Following his two-win day, Bush drove to Ocala to celebrate with his daughter, Kayla Hall, and his 13-year-old grandson Matthew. “We had a pizza and watched a movie. I think I was in bed by 9:30,” said Bush, whose dreams have become clearer since incorporating the principles of AA into his lifestyle.

Around the oval. Kathleen O’Connell won today’s fourth race with 4-year-old Florida-bred filly Sassy Charlee, moving the trainer within one victory of tying Kim Hammond as the all-time winningest female trainer in North America. Sassy Charlee’s victory was No. 2,384 for O’Connell. Jose Batista rode for “K.O.” and owner Endsley Oaks Farm.

Hammond is represented in tonight’s sixth race at Turfway Park by Clearing Waivers. O’Connell has four horses entered Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs and two at Gulfstream Park (in the same race).

Apprentice jockey Laureano Sosa rode two winners today. He captured the third race on Dr. Bella, a 3-year-old filly owned by Calvin Johnson and trained by Anthony Granitz. Sosa added the ninth and final race on the turf with Justintimeforwine, a 6-year-old gelding owned by Carole Star Stables and trained by Jose H. Delgado.

Tampa Bay Downs 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.