TWO WEEKS LEFT IN MEET, BUT GOTTA MAKE PLANS NOW

By Mike Henry —-

OLDSMAR, FL. – This time of year, the phrase “and they’re off!” takes on a different and poignant meaning at Tampa Bay Downs.

With two weeks left in the 2020-2021 Oldsmar meeting, a few trainers and jockeys have already departed. It’s no small task moving Thoroughbreds across state lines, and whatever emotions riders have about leaving stay hidden beneath the “in-the-moment” focus they need to give their best effort.

Throw in COVID-19 regulations that vary from state-to-state, plus the risks of contracting the illness, and the difficulties of operating a racing stable or making a living as a jockey seem monumental.

Horse racing has always rewarded individuals who stand tall in the face of a challenge, and the show will go on throughout much of the country in the six months between the May 2 Tampa Bay Downs season finale and the expected re-opening of the barn area around Halloween.

An informal survey of trainers and jockeys revealed the following destinations. All contacted expressed their desire to return here in the fall and build on the momentum stoked by four 10-percent purse increases:

· Gerald Bennett, who has clinched his sixth consecutive Tampa Bay Downs training title, will have his own 60-stall barn at Delaware Park. The meet there begins May 26.

· Antonio Gallardo, who is gunning for his sixth Oldsmar jockeys championship, will head to Monmouth Park in New Jersey – which starts May 28 – and also plans to compete at Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va., beginning July 19.

· Samy Camacho, who is challenging Gallardo for the title, will be moving his tack to Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach.

· Jockeys Daniel Centeno, Jose Ferrer, Hector Diaz, Jr., Isaac Castillo and Tomas Mejia all plan to ride at Monmouth. Diaz will ride first at Belmont Park, which starts its spring/summer meeting Thursday.

· A number of trainers plan to establish their base at Monmouth: Kathleen O’Connell, Jose H. Delgado, Mike Dini, Derek Ryan, Luis Carvajal, Jr., Darien Rodriguez, Kent Sweezey and Antonio Machado among them. O’Connell will keep a string of about 30 horses at Gulfstream; Sweezey will keep the same number at nearby Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach.

· Michael Stidham, who won the $12-million Dubai World Cup last month with Mystic Guide, will maintain 50 horses at Delaware and 20 at Arlington Park in Illinois, which starts its meeting April 30. Stidham’s Tampa Bay Downs assistant, Ben Trask, will be based at Delaware. Stidham also keeps 40 at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.

· Arnaud Delacour will keep about 30 horses at Delaware and 33 at Fair Hill. Both locations, he points out, are convenient for shipping to other tracks in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions.

· Presque Isle Downs in Erie, Pa., opened in mid-May in 2019, but didn’t start until late July last year. This year’s meeting begins July 5, forcing many regulars to adjust their plans. Jockey Ronnie Allen, Jr., and his fiancée, trainer Maria Bowersock, will first race at Thistledown outside Cleveland, which starts April 26; rider Scott Spieth and his wife, trainer Aldana Gonzalez, will compete at Belterra Park in Cincinnati, which starts April 29.

· Also headed to Presque Isle Downs this summer are jockeys Huber Villa-Gomez and David Delgado.

· Jockeys Roberto Alvarado, Jr., and Raul Mena will compete at Delaware, as will Keiber Coa. Wilmer Garcia hopes to go to Woodbine, which is now expected to open for racing May 7; Ademar Santos also is expected to compete there.

· Trainer Anthony Granitz will stable 12 horses at Arlington Park and another 20 or so at Indiana Grand Race Course, which opened for racing April 13. Conditioner Ron G. Potts plans to race at Penn National for a couple of months before heading to Presque Isle Downs.

· Trainer Dennis Ward will split his stable between Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows Training Center.

· After spending the last few summers at Gulfstream, trainer Juan Arriagada is returning to Delaware Park.

· Jockeys Jesus Castanon and Jose Batista both left recently for Indiana Grand, where they already are winning races.

· Trainer Jon Arnett will compete at Prairie Meadows, which starts April 30. Trainers David Van Winkle, Bernell Rhone and Tim Padilla plan to compete at Canterbury in Minnesota, which opens May 18; so do jockeys Alonso Quinonez, Dean Butler and Chad Lindsay.

· Gary Wales, who won the 2019 riding title at Emerald Downs, plans to return to the Auburn, Wash., racetrack.

Well, the world keeps spinning and just about everyone tries to devise ways to get back home, because clicking your heels together three times only seems to work for little girls from Kansas. About the only other thing worth telling is that all contacted agree this season’s Tampa Bay Downs meeting went by far too quickly.

Around the oval. Jockey Jose Ferrer and trainer Jon Arnett each won two races today. They teamed for a victory in the fourth race with Flaming Indy, a 4-year-old filly owned by Bill Guess. Ferrer won the third race on the turf aboard Bourbon Tan, a 5-year-old gelding owned by William Granger and trained by Moises Yanez. Arnett won the first race with 5-year-old Florida-bred mare Russian Roulette, owned by Richard Lueck and ridden by Dean Butler.

Wilmer Garcia rode back-to-back winners. He captured the seventh race on Nicole Munnings, a 7-year-old gelding owned by Jill Ciperski and trained by Monica McGoey. Garcia added the eighth aboard Deny, a 4-year-old gelding owned by Steven Mueller and trained by Rob O’Connor, II.

Thoroughbred racing continues Wednesday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:15 p.m. Racing will be held each Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday through May 2, with that day Fan Appreciation Day. There will be free Grandstand admission and parking, and beers, sodas and Nathan’s Hot Dogs will be sold at discounted prices.

The May 2 card will also mark the unofficial conclusion of the Oldsmar oval’s 95th anniversary season. The meeting proper ends Wednesday, June 30, which is also the first day of the ninth annual, two-day Summer Festival of Racing. The July 1 Summer Festival card is officially the first day of the 2021-2022 meeting, which is expected to then resume in late November.