HARTY SAYS GROVELAND APPROACHING TAMPA BAY DERBY IN GOOD FORM

By Mike Henry —-

PHOTO OF GROVELAND TO SV PHOTOGRAPHY

HARTY SAYS GROVELAND APPROACHING TAMPA BAY DERBY IN GOOD FORM

OLDSMAR, FL. – Eoin Harty has had high expectations for his Godolphin-owned homebred colt Groveland since he began training him before his first career start last fall at Gulfstream.
“He has always acted like he was a little bit special,” the trainer said of the son of 2007 Tampa Bay Derby and Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense. “He has all the qualities you look for in a nice horse, and he has a wonderful disposition, which is probably his main strength.”
For all of his strong points, though, Groveland showed Harty a new aspect of his developing game in the Grade III Sam F. Davis Stakes here on Feb. 11: a determination to overcome adversity in his desire to win.
After getting shut off by pace-setter Zydeceaux just as he was launching a major move at the 3/8-mile pole, forcing jockey Daniel Centeno to hit the brakes, Groveland re-rallied to throw a scare into the eventual winner, Litigate, and rider Luis Saez.
Although unable to run down Litigate, Groveland was an impressive second at odds of 21-1, a length-and-a-half ahead of Classic Car Wash.
“If you had told me at the top of the stretch he’d be fourth, I would have been happy. If you had told me he would hit the board, I’d have been ecstatic. And if you told me he’d be second, I’d be delighted,” Harty said this morning from Santa Anita in California. “I went through a whole range of emotions in the last three-eighths of a mile.”
Harty is preparing Groveland – and himself – for another trip on the emotional roller coaster of big-time racing in the Grade III, $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby on March 11. The mile-and-a-sixteenth main track contest is a 100-point “Road to the Kentucky Derby” race, with the winner receiving 50 points toward a guaranteed spot in the Run for the Roses starting gate on May 6 at Churchill Downs.
The Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby is part of a $1-million Festival Day 43 stakes bonanza which includes the Grade II, $225,000 Hillsborough Stakes on the turf; the Grade III, $200,000 Florida Oaks on the turf; the Grade III, $100,000 Michelob Ultra Challenger on the main track; and the $75,000 Columbia Stakes on the turf.
While the makeup of the field for the Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby is largely unknown, trainer Todd Pletcher has indicated he is pointing Litigate to the Grade II Louisiana Derby on March 25 at Fair Grounds.
Groveland, who has made four of his five starts at Tampa Bay Downs, breezed 5 furlongs Tuesday in 1:01 4/5 with Centeno aboard. “I let him gallop out a good three-quarters (of a mile), because I want to make sure he is plenty fit for next Saturday,” said Harty, who is planning one more work next week. “He won’t be short of work if he gets beat.”
Harty credits exercise rider Jeanna Nicosia for playing a big role in Groveland’s development. “She gallops him and is a real key to my success overall,” he said.
While laden with promise and a pedigree to match (he’s out of a Medaglia d’Oro mare, Lucknow), Groveland still has only one victory from five starts, with two seconds and two thirds. “The best-laid plans of mice and men can go out the window when the gate opens (Saturday),” Harty said.
Now, 16 years have passed since Street Sense used a victory in the Tampa Bay Derby as a springboard to his slice of racing immortality in Louisville. Harty – who trained Street Sense’s sire Street Cry as a 2-year-old when the future Dubai World Cup winner finished third in the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile – senses the pieces coming together for a trip to Churchill Downs in May.
“The fact that he is a nice horse is not a surprise to anyone who knows the family,” said Harty, who started three horses in the Kentucky Derby from 2008-2010 and was an assistant to Bob Baffert for victories by Silver Charm in 1997 and Real Quiet in 1998.
“If we are fortunate enough to get to the Kentucky Derby with this horse, I won’t have any reservations about him getting the (mile-and-a-quarter) distance.”
Rodriguez is Boot Barn Trainer of the Month. Darien Rodriguez finds it easy to resist the temptation to use his success as a Thoroughbred trainer to enlarge his stable. He’s comfortable working with the horses he’s been given, along with a handful he runs under his Sabal Racing Stable banner.
Since the 2016-2017 meet, the 43-year-old conditioner has sent out 101 winners from 378 starters at Tampa Bay Downs. Those are numbers guaranteed to pay the bills and keep his owners supplying him with runners.
Rodriguez is happy to keep his numbers at that level, knowing bigger is not always better and can leave the door open to additional stress and headaches.
“I really don’t care about the number (of horses in his barn),” said Rodriguez, the Boot Barn Trainer of the Month after posting six victories and four seconds from 13 starters in February. “I’ve seen over and over people with too many horses who don’t have a life away from the track. If I have 10 horses and they are doing well and winning races, that is all that matters.”
Rodriguez, who came to the United States from Cuba when he was 16, always had it in mind to work with racehorses. He worked as an exercise rider while absorbing the knowledge he would need to operate his own stable.
“I saw some things that I thought were being overlooked and things I thought could be done better, and I decided I didn’t want to gallop. I wanted to train and see what I could do,” he said.
Although most of his horses compete at the claiming level, Rodriguez has displayed the skill to help better horses excel. His top runners include Tiger Blood, who won the Pelican Stakes and the Florida Cup Sprint here back-to-back in 2017, and Crown and Sugar, who capped a five-race winning streak with a victory in the 2019 Florida Cup Pleasant Acres Stallions Distaff Turf.
Regardless of quality, patience plays a key role in the success of Rodriguez’s runners, as in the case of Robert A. Meier’s 3-year-old filly Bon Dia. She broke her maiden under jockey Samy Camacho in her career debut on Feb. 25 in gate-to-wire fashion, sprinting clear in an impressive time of 1:11.29 for 6 furlongs.
Rodriguez acquired Bon Dia in November, but a couple of factors delayed her getting to the races. “She was small, and she had a lot of extra weight on her,” Rodriguez said of the well-bred daughter of 2006 Preakness winner Bernardini out of the stakes-winning mare Sounds Delicious. “But she trained up to the race pretty good, and I think she might be able (to keep progressing).”
Rodriguez also took his time with Tita Mimosa, a 3-year-old half-sister to multiple Grade I-winning 4-year-old colt Taiba. Thorough preparation was rewarded on Feb. 11 when Tita Mimosa, with Antonio Gallardo aboard, scored a gutsy head victory in her first lifetime start in 1:10.99 for owner Centurion Thoroughbreds Racing.
Another Rodriguez runner with promise is 3-year-old gelding Possiblemente, 2-for-4 here with two seconds while racing under the trainer’s Sabal Racing Stable banner. “He still acts like a baby most of the time, but he’s got a little bit of talent,” Rodriguez said.
Castellano wins George Woolf Award. Javier Castellano, a member of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and a four-time Eclipse Award winner as Outstanding Jockey from 2013-2016, has won the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in a nationwide vote of his fellow riders.
The 45-year-old Venezuela product, who has ridden 5,619 career winners, will be honored this spring in a ceremony at Santa Anita.
Castellano defeated the four other finalists in the voting: six-time Tampa Bay Downs riding champion Daniel Centeno; Willie Martinez and Terry Houghton, also past Oldsmar jockey champions; and southern California-based Edwin Maldonado.
“I am proud to have been honored and selected to win this incredible award,” Castellano said in a press release from Santa Anita. “It is one that is obviously prestigious, but to be voted by my fellow riders truly makes this so special. I admire my fellow nominees as well as the other incredible riders that have won this award in years past.”
The George Woolf Award is named for the late Hall of Fame jockey who gained fame by winning the inaugural Santa Anita Handicap in 1935 aboard Azucar and three years later rode Seabiscuit to victory over War Admiral in their legendary match race at Pimlico. Woolf, nicknamed “The Iceman,” died in 1946 the day after suffering a concussion in a fall during a race.
Castellano has won 12 Breeders’ Cup races, two runnings of the Preakness and a Kentucky Oaks. He won the Grade III Tampa Bay Stakes here last month on 4-year-old colt Emmanuel, who set a course record of 1:39.25 for the mile-and-a-sixteenth distance on the turf course.
The George Woolf Award recognizes those jockeys whose careers and personal character garner esteem for the individual and the sport of Thoroughbred racing.
Around the oval. Jose Ferrer and Samy Camacho each rode two winners today. Ferrer scored in the second race on Isle of Skye, a 4-year-old gelding owned by Averill Racing and trained by Gerald Bennett. Ferrer added the fifth race on the turf aboard Shimmering Leroid, a 4-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Utterly Giles Stable and trained by Brenda McCarthy.
Camacho won the fourth race on 4-year-old Florida-bred gelding Had Right, owned by GOP Racing Stable and Impact Thoroughbreds and trained by Gerard Ochoa. Camacho added the eighth with Our Shot, a 4-year-old gelding owned by Gatsas Stables, Steven Schoenfeld and John P. Terranova, II and trained by Terranova.
Camacho has ridden 25 winners over the last 10 racing days and has at least one winner over the last 13 racing days.
Trainer Victor Barboza, Jr., also had two winners. He captured the first race with Mr Jack, a 3-year-old colt owned by Equine Services and ridden by Marcos Meneses. Barboza won the sixth race with Yeguita Queen, a 5-year-old mare owned by Veb Racing Stable Corp. and ridden by Jose Batista.
Thoroughbred racing continues Saturday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:10 p.m. 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.