TAMPA BAY: HOME, SWEET HOME: FIRST-DAY ARRIVALS SOAK IN NEW SURROUNDINGS

By Mike Henry —-

HOME, SWEET HOME: FIRST-DAY ARRIVALS SOAK IN NEW SURROUNDINGS

OLDSMAR, FL. – Oldsmar resident J. Carlos Cacho, who began working for nine-time Tampa Bay Downs leading trainer Gerald Bennett 23 years ago, spent the last 10 days making sure everything was “just so” for this morning’s arrival of 15 Bennett-trained Thoroughbreds from Monmouth Park in New Jersey.

From bedding down their stalls to sprucing up the tack rooms, providing abundant supplies of fresh drinking water and cleaning the floor mats along the shed row, Cacho and stable exercise rider Jean Claude Medina strove to assure Bennett’s charges they’d come to the right place.

“This is going to be their home (for the next 5-to-6 months). We want them to have a nice place to live,” Bennett’s top assistant said.

Five horses shipped to the Bennett barn were the first arrivals when the track’s stable gate entrance opened today at 6 a.m. Another 10 were on their way from New Jersey, with two dozen or so more expected to arrive at their Cacho-designed digs from Ocala over the next several days.

Those horses were among more than 70 from various outfits that had arrived by noon in preparation for Tampa Bay Downs’s 98th anniversary season, which is scheduled to resume Nov. 22 (the meet officially began July 1, the second day of the track’s annual two-day Summer Festival of Racing).

To Cacho and his boss, horses that feel good are likely to give their best in their training and races. He says the Oldsmar oval offers conditioners the opportunity to set their runners up for success.

“You look around here – this is a beautiful place,” Cacho said as the sun rose above the barn rooftops. “It’s wide open, they can look at the natural surroundings, see the trees when they’re galloping. They enjoy this kind of weather (temperatures in the low 70s early today, with gentle breezes), and they really like the sulfur water. It smells bad, but they love it.”

Subsequent shipments arriving in the predawn hours included a handful from training newcomer Alejandro Olais Mendieta, who saddled his first career starter on Aug. 31 at Belterra Park in Ohio, and Mike Dini, who has sent out 569 career winners and finished sixth in last season’s Oldsmar standings with 23 winners.

Dini arrived early with 18 from his Monmouth summer base, with another nine on the way. The President of the Tampa Bay Downs Division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, Dini expects an additional $5.5-million in overnight purse money above last season’s payments to benefit everyone from horsemen to jockeys to stable employees to bettors – not to mention the track’s bottom line.

“We have some new outfits coming in, and there will probably be more ship-ins (for various races),” Dini said. “That is going to help field size and make the racing more competitive. More outfits are going to make money, where in the past you might have had a good meet up north and come here trying to break even.”

Fresh faces who have been allotted stalls include Jamie Ness, who won nine consecutive titles here from 2007-2015; McLean Robertson, who has saddled more than 1,500 winners; and William E. Morey, with more than 1,800 victories.

In front of Dini’s barn, workers moved purposefully to get his horses into their stalls. A Simoff Horse Transport van was scheduled to return to Monmouth to pick up a load for Kathleen O’Connell, a two-time Oldsmar training champion who is the sport’s No. 1 female trainer in North American racing history with 2,424 victories.

The Tampa Bay Downs main dirt track is scheduled to open for training next Wednesday, Nov. 1. On Nov. 3 and 4, Tampa Bay Downs will simulcast the 40th edition of the Breeders’ Cup, the sport’s World Championships, from Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif.