WANT TO ATTEND FESTIVAL DAY 41? DON’T GET CAUGHT WATCHING PAINT DRY

By Mike Henry —-

OLDSMAR, FL. – Tickets for Festival Day 41 Presented by Lambholm South on March 6 are being sold on the Tampa Bay Downs website, www.tampabaydowns.com

General Admission attendance will be capped at 2,500. Tickets are $15 plus a $2.55 service fee. Picnic Area tables sold out quickly, but a total of 100 individual Picnic Area spaces are being sold for $15 each, plus the service fee. Anyone purchasing a Picnic Area space must provide their own seating.

The General Admission and Picnic Area ticket price includes a commemorative cap.

Five stakes races will be contested on March 6, headed by the 41st running of the Grade II, $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby for 3-year-olds at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the main track.

The Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby is a “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points race, awarding qualifying points for the May 1 Run for the Roses to the first four finishers on a 50-20-10-5 scale. The Oldsmar showcase has produced two Kentucky Derby winners: 2007 Tampa Bay Derby winner Street Sense and 2010 Tampa Bay Derby third-place finisher Super Saver.

Turf-loving females will also be spotlighted. The Grade II, $225,000 Hillsborough Stakes for older fillies and mares – which has produced such top-class winners in recent years as Starship Jubilee (2020), Fourstar Crook (2018), Dickinson (2017), Tepin (2016), Stephanie’s Kitten (2015) and Zagora (2012) – will be contested at a mile-and-an-eighth on the grass. The Grade III, $200,000 Florida Oaks for 3-year-old fillies, first run on the turf in 2011, is slated for a mile-and-a-sixteenth.

Rounding out the March 6 stakes menu are the Grade III, $100,000 Michelob Ultra Challenger Stakes for horses 4-years-old-and-upward at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the main track and the $75,000 Columbia Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on the turf.

Around the oval. As reported earlier, Turf Sprint Showcase Day – originally scheduled for Saturday – has been pushed back to Sunday, Feb. 21 because of an abundance of rain this weekend, with more forecast over the next few days.

The $100,000, 5-furlong Turf Dash for horses 4-and-upward and the $100,000, 5-furlong Lightning City Stakes for fillies and mares 4-and-upward each drew 33 nominations. No matter the conditions, or the fields, both races will be hard-pressed to surpass last year’s renewals, when (then)-7-year-old Florida-bred gelding Faction Cat set a course record of 53.97 seconds in winning the Turf Dash and (then)-5-year-old Jean Elizabeth set a stakes record of 55.09 in the Lightning City.

Two scratches reduced the field for today’s co-featured fifth race, the Cody’s Original Roadhouse Race of the Week, to four 3-year-old fillies, but that didn’t stop Fan Fan from putting on a show. The Florida-bred posted a 7 ½-length victory under jockey Hector Diaz, Jr., in a time of 1:11.65 on a good track. Fan Fan is owned by Ca Sal Stables and trained by Kathleen O’Connell.

In the other co-feature, the sixth race – switched from the turf to the main track because of all the rain – 3-year-old filly Atlantic Princess drew off to a 6 ½-length victory under leading jockey Samy Camacho. Atlantic Princess is owned by Thomas Ridgely Demas and trained by leading conditioner Gerald Bennett.

Camacho and Bennett teamed to win the eighth race with Baby Boomer, a 4-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Bennett’s Winning Stables.

Antonio Gallardo also rode two winners. He won the third race on 7-year-old Florida-bred gelding Legacy Azteca for owner Mercy Man Racing and trainer Darien Rodriguez. Legacy Azteca was claimed from the race for $5,000 by trainer Gerald Bennett for new owner Averill Racing.

Gallardo added the ninth and final race with Nora Radd, a 3-year-old Florida-bred filly owned by Monster Racing Stables and trained by Jose H. Delgado.

Thoroughbred racing continues Wednesday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:15 p.m. Tampa Bay Downs currently races on a Wednesday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule. 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 (when weather permits, which is almost all the time).