OWEN ALMIGHTY MORNING-LINE DAVIS CHOICE; LA CARA 2-1 FOR SUNCOAST

By Mike Henry —-

OWEN ALMIGHTY MORNING-LINE DAVIS CHOICE; LA CARA 2-1 FOR SUNCOAST

OLDSMAR, FL. – Eoin Harty calls Saturday’s $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes for 3-year-olds at Tampa Bay Downs “the first step on the Derby merry-go-round.”

It’s a thrill ride the connections of all 10 entrants would like to stay on through the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs.

The mile-and-a-sixteenth Sam F. Davis, a “Road to the Kentucky Derby” race awarding Kentucky Derby qualifying points to the first five finishers on a 20-10-6-4-2 scale, is the 11th contest on a 12-race card scheduled to begin at 12:05 p.m. It is one of four main-track stakes on the Oldsmar oval’s Festival Preview Day 45 program.

Saturday’s other stakes are the $150,000, mile-and-40-yard Suncoast Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, which is the ninth race on the card and a “Road to the Kentucky Oaks” points race; the $125,000, 6-furlong Pelican Stakes for horses 4-years-old-and-upward, slated as the fifth race; and the $100,000, 6-furlong Minaret Stakes for fillies and mares 4-and-upward, scheduled as the sixth.

The 3-year-old carousel will return to Tampa Bay Downs on March 8 with the Grade III, $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby. How many return from the Sam F. Davis will be determined.

Trainer Brian Lynch’s stakes-winning and graded stakes-placed Owen Almighty, who was disqualified from first to fifth here on Jan. 11 in the Pasco Stakes for interference, has been established as the 2-1 morning-line favorite. He will break from the No. 6 post and again be ridden by Irad Ortiz, Jr., and will be wearing blinkers for the first time in five career starts.

“I couldn’t be happier with the way he’s been training,” Lynch said this morning. “He’s a very talented horse, and we’re at a stage to see how deep that talent goes.

“This will be the farthest he’s ever run, and I feel confident the mile-and-a-sixteenth will not be a problem. He’s shown up every time we’ve led him over. But this is a nice field of horses, and we’re all on a learning curve right now.”

Harty will saddle a pair of horses in the Sam F. Davis, headed by Godolphin-owned homebred Poster, who is 3-for-3 including a victory in the Grade II Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct in December in his first dirt start. Poster will break from the No. 7 post under jockey Antonio Gallardo.

Harty’s other entry is Calumet Farm’s Very Bold, who was elevated from third to second in the Pasco Stakes behind winner Naughty Rascal upon the disqualification of Owen Almighty.

“Poster is doing good, he’s really happy and he has plenty of ability, and that’s about all I can ask for,” Harty said. “This race is a steppingstone to get horses fit for what’s ahead. Of course I’m hoping he’ll win, but if he doesn’t I hope he shows up and runs his race and gives us hope for the future.”

Very Bold will break from the No. 10 post under Jesus Castanon. He is 20-1 on the morning line.

“It’s a bad post, but at least there is a little run into the turn and hopefully he doesn’t get hung out to dry,” Harty said. “The way he finished (in the Pasco) and galloped out, he showed he doesn’t have any distance limitations. He’s filling out and doing better all the time, and I’m certainly optimistic about him.”

Harty also has a filly for Godolphin in the Suncoast Stakes, Deloraine, who won here on the turf on Dec. 13 and will be ridden by Castanon.

The second choice in the Sam F. Davis at 3-1 is John Hancock, who is owned by WinStar Farm, LLC and CHC Inc., and trained by Brad Cox. Flavien Prat, the 2024 Eclipse Award Outstanding Jockey winner, will be aboard, a week after capturing two Grade III turf stakes, the Endeavour and the Tampa Bay Stakes, at Tampa Bay Downs.

John Hancock has made only one start, but it was impressive. On Jan. 8, he set all the fractions in a 6-furlong maiden special weight affair here under Samy Camacho, winning in a time of 1:09.45, which is .78 seconds off It’s Me Mom’s track record.

How he will do against stronger company and if challenged early, and what kind of stamina he possesses, are among the questions to be answered, but the signature of another John Hanock displayed incredible staying power. This John Hancock will break from the No. 3 post.

The sentimental favorite (not that sentiment doesn’t surround all 10, depending on who you talk to) is trainer Gerald Bennett’s colt Naughty Rascal, who will break from the No. 8 post under Edwin Gonzalez. Owned by Mr Pug and J.P.G. 2, Naughty Rascal has three career stakes victories, including the Pasco Stakes.

Bennett, 80, remains among the track’s top conditioners despite being slowed this season by health issues, including bladder problems and cancer in his colon, liver and a lung, requiring chemotherapy treatments. Bennett’s best Sam F. Davis finish in four tries was a second in 2007 with All I Can Get, and a sizable portion of the crowd will be cheering for him to celebrate on his home track.

The only other Sam F. Davis entrant opening at single-digit odds is Treaty of Rome, who finished second in his most recent start on Jan. 4, the Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream, to Guns Loaded. Treaty of Rome is 6-1 and will break from the No. 2 post.

Owned by Mrs. John Magnier, Derrick Smith and Michael B. Tabor and trained by Chad Brown, Treaty of Rome will be ridden by Dylan Davis.

The Suncoast Stakes for sophomore fillies also shapes up as a highly competitive affair, with eight scheduled to start. The 2-1 morning-line favorite is La Cara, a daughter of 2007 Tampa Bay Derby and Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense. La Cara is owned by her breeder, Tracy Farmer, and trained by Mark Casse. She will break from the No. 6 post under Dylan Davis.

La Cara won the Grade III Pocahontas Stakes on Sept. 14 at Churchill Downs before a fifth-place finish on Nov. 1 in the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

“We’re hoping she is a Kentucky Oaks filly, and (the Suncoast) is the first step in proving that,” Casse said. “She has been sharp in her workouts and I think she will be up pretty close early coming off the layoff.”

Casse said the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies was a disappointment, but he is ready to throw it out given the manner in which La Cara has been training at Palm Meadows in Boynton Beach. “I just want a good, positive race, and I think she will give us one,” Casse said.

The second choice in the Suncoast at 5-2 is Her Laugh, bred and owned by Grantley Acres and trained by Whit Beckman. She won the mile-and-70-yard Untapable Stakes on Dec. 21 at Fair Grounds in gate-to-wire fashion. The jockey will be Irad Ortiz, Jr. Her Laugh starts from the No. 4 post.

“We know we have a good filly, and we’re excited to see how she comes back as a 3-year-old,” said Beckman, who also trains the promising sophomore filly Simply Joking for Acres and partners. Her Laugh “has always been a straightforward, professional and talented filly, and she has been acting like she’s improving in her workouts. She’s growing and putting things all together.”

The 7-2 third choice is Italian Soiree, who is owned by Hit The Bid Racing Stable, Morplay Racing, LLC and Randall Hartley and trained by John P. Terranova, II. Prat will be aboard. Her three most recent starts have come in graded-stakes company, with a second-place finish in August in the Grade III Adirondack at Saratoga her best performance in her stakes tries. Italian Soiree breaks from the No. 3 position.

It’s a deep field, but bettors might be wise not to count out local hopeful Dancing Magic, who won the Gasparilla Stakes here on Jan. 11. Michael Campbell, who trains Dancing Magic for owner Mellon Patch, Inc., thinks that effort is capable of propelling the daughter of Good Magic to bigger and more lucrative engagements.

Junior Alvarado will again be in the saddle. They start from the No. 2 post.

“With the level of training I have in her, I’m very confident of her getting the two turns,” Campbell said. “It’s a tough field, but as a points race for the Kentucky Oaks, it should be that way. You have to perform well if you want to go on, so I welcome the competition.

“I was impressed by the 5/8-mile turn of foot she showed (in the 7-furlong Casparilla). She got distracted when the rider on the horse inside of her came off at the break, and she had to make up a lot of ground on a track that favored speed. She looks and feels like a horse that will get better as her races get longer,” Campbell said.

The morning-line favorite for the Pelican Stakes at 2-1 is 4-year-old colt Nutella Fella, a Grade I winner owned by Bell Gable Stable and trained by Gary Contessa. Alvarado is the jockey. Alvarado is also named on the 7-5 favorite for the Minaret, 5-year-old mare Nic’s Style, who is owned by Stephen Rousseau and trained by Bill Mott.

Avila is Mother’s Restaurant Trainer of Month. As the trainer for former major league baseball power hitter Victor Martinez, Juan Carlos Avila has gotten used to swinging for the fences.

On Dec. 28, Avila sent then-5-year-old Little Vic, who races under Martinez’s Victoria’s Ranch banner, to Gulfstream Park for the Grade III Mr. Prospector Stakes, where he finished third at odds of 71-1 behind Mufasa and multiple-Grade I winner White Abarrio. The 7-furlong Mr. Prospector set Little Vic up perfectly for his next performance, a victory in the Grade III, 1-mile Fred W. Hooper Stakes presented by Ketel One Vodka two weeks ago at Gulfstream (at a still-healthy price of 8-1).

And, memorably for the connections and Tampa Bay Downs followers, Martinez elected five years ago to have Avila enter maiden winner King Guillermo in the Grade II, $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby. Overcoming his 49-1 odds, King Guillermo rolled to victory by 4 ¾ lengths, setting off possibly the biggest winner’s-circle joyfest in the history of the race.

So when the field is being saddled for Saturday’s $125,000 Pelican Stakes, which is the fifth race on the card, bettors aware of that history will take a close look at Martinez’s and Avila’s 15-1 shot Silver Slugger.

“It’s a difficult race,” said Avila, named the Mother’s Restaurant Trainer of the Month after posting seven victories from 19 Tampa Bay Downs starters in January. “I don’t know (how he fits) with these horses.

“But when Victor says go, I say go. He said go to the Tampa Bay Derby with King Guillermo and we won. Maybe this time, too.”

Silver Slugger, a 5-year-old gelded son of Cairo Prince purchased by Victoria’s Ranch for $90,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale, has endured a series of physical issues that have limited him to four career starts. He has won three of them, all at Tampa Bay Downs, the most recent victory on Jan. 18 in an $8,000 claiming race at the Pelican Stakes distance of 6 furlongs.

His time was 1:09.59, .92 seconds off It’s Me Mom’s track record. At the least, it might be the optimum time to discover if Silver Slugger can develop into another Little Vic type, even if such entrants as Nutella Fella and Pure Class seem to have a decided class edge.

Marcos Meneses will ride Silver Slugger.

As for Little Vic, Avila hopes to bring him to Dubai for the Group 2 Godolphin Mile on April 5 at Meydan Racecourse. He thinks the 1-mile distance is ideal for the 6-year-old, who is 8-for-26 lifetime with two Grade III victories.

Another good horse in the Avila barn is California Frolic, a 6-year-old horse Avila trains for Julian J. De Mora, Jr. He is a three-time stakes winner, and Avila hopes to find a longer turf race for him at Tampa Bay Downs in the near future.

This is the second year Avila has kept a full complement of 32 Thoroughbreds at the Oldsmar oval, and he enjoys the laid-back, rustic atmosphere on the backside. “I’m very comfortable here. I like it and the horses like it,” Avila, 61, said. “The people here are very nice, and everyone in the Racing Office is helpful. It’s a very easy place to work with horses.”

Avila is quick to credit his assistant, Juan Jimenez, and his grooms, hotwalkers and exercise riders for their contributions.

Avila has trained horses since the mid-1980s and is known as one of Venezuela’s most successful trainers, with about 3,000 victories and nine titles at La Rinconada, including seven in a row, before coming to the United States in 2018.

His family lives in the Miami area, where his wife of more than 20 years, Lindsay Perera, is a personal fitness trainer and nutritionist and a competitive bodybuilder. They have a son Kendrich, 22, and a daughter Tabitha, 17.

Avila has an older daughter, Valeria, who lives in Venezuela. His son Juan Carlos, Jr., played professional baseball and operates the JC Hitting Performance Baseball School in Hialeah.

“We’re a competition family,” said Avila, who showed a visitor a video clip of Tabitha, a talented singer, performing an opera number recently at the Tampa Convention Center.

“I don’t know nothing about the opera,” he confessed. “So after she sang, my family was going ‘Yeah, Tabitha, Yeah!’ as soon as she finished, and everyone around us went ‘Shhh.’ OK, sorry,” he added, smiling.

Rest assured, Tabitha will be cheering as loud as she’d like for Silver Slugger in the Pelican.

Around the oval. One bettor hit the late Pick-5 today, collecting $53,675.50. The winning combination was 8-8-4-3-6.

Entering today’s action, owner Pedro Brito Brito, trainer Alejandro Olais Mendieta and jockey Anthony Rodriguez were winless at the meet. That changed in a big way when they combined to win the sixth and seventh races back-to-back.

The trio won the sixth with 19-1 shot Pure Elegance, a 6-year-old mare. It was back to the winner’s circle after the seventh with 5-year-old Florida-bred gelding Frosty the Soldier.

Bettors turning to the fourth race in their Saturday programs may do a double-take. The No. 9 horse in the 1-mile turf allowance is a French-bred 3-year-old filly named Carpe Diem, the same name as the horse that won the Grade II Tampa Bay Derby in 2015.

That Carpe Diem, now 13 years old, stands as a stallion at Lacer @ Aztec Equine, a Thoroughbred breeding farm in Louisiana. He was a two-time Grade I winner for owners WinStar Farm and Stonestreet Stables and trainer Todd Pletcher, earning more than $1.5-million.

L’autre cheval is 1-for-4 in her career, her victory coming last summer at Craon in Mayenne, France. Owned by Amerman Racing and trained by H. Graham Motion, she will be ridden by Brian Hernandez, Jr.

Apprentice jockey Alexandra Sherman, who both trains and rides her horses, won today’s third race on 4-year-old filly Kozak Spirit. The winner is owned by Jay Gates. It was the first victory at the current meet for Sherman as a jockey and her first ever as a trainer.

Tampa Bay Downs races each Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 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.