HRI EDITED RELEASE — Precocious 3-year-olds of both sexes attempt to get 2020 off to a flying start Saturday when Tampa Bay Downs plays host to Skyway Festival Day, featuring three main-track stakes races worth a combined $300,000 in purse money.
Post time for the first of Saturday’s 10 races is 12:47 p.m.
A field of seven 3-year-old colts and geldings will line up in the 20th edition of the $125,000, 7-furlong Pasco Stakes, the track’s main prep race for the Grade III, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes on Feb. 8. The Pasco is scheduled as the third race. The field includes three stakes winners: Liam’s Lucky Charm, Golden Candy and Albert Park.
The 36th running of the $125,000, 7-furlong Gasparilla Stakes, which is the ninth race on the program, has attracted 11 3-year-old fillies, headed by the Mark Casse-trained stakes winner Two Sixty and a pair from the barn of trainer Ken McPeek, Palace Miss and Swiss Skydiver.
The third stakes on the card is the 36th edition of the $50,000 Wayward Lass Stakes for fillies and mares 4-years-old-and-upward, slated as the seventh race. There are seven horses entered in the 1 1/16-mile event, including Godolphin’s 4-year-old filly Classic Fit and 5-year-old Jehozacat, owned by Lael Stables.
Around the Oval: Daniel Centeno, Samy Camacho and Antonio Gallardo all rode two winners today, with both of Centeno’s victories coming on the turf. He won the fourth race, a $16,000 maiden claiming event for 3-year-olds, on first-time starter Paliza, a Bridlewood Farm-bred and owned gelding trained by Jonathan Thomas.
In the sixth race, an allowance/optional claiming event for fillies and mares 4-years-old-and-upward, Centeno triumphed on 5-year-old mare Ode to Joy for breeders-owners Beverly S. Anderson and Edward A. Seltzer and trainer Arnaud Delacour.
Camacho won the first race, a $5,000 claiming event, aboard Prima Gold, a 5-year-old Florida-bred mare owned by Winning Stables and trained by Gerald Bennett. Camacho added the eighth race on the turf, a starter optional claiming race, with Uncork the Bottle, a 3-year-old colt owned by Bassett Stables and trained by Saffie A. Joseph, Jr., and now 3-for-3.
Gallardo won the third race, a $6,250 claiming affair, on Whistle Me Home, a 5-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Orlando Alvarado and trained by Kathleen Guciardo. Gallardo added the ninth on the turf, a claiming race for older horses, on False Info, a 4-year-old gelding owned by Windylea Farm and trained by Kathleen O’Connell.
