Eau Claire faces winners after lopsided maiden score
A New York-bred such as Eau Claire might normally be found competing for far bigger purses in statebred company – except there’s no turf racing in New York at this time of year.
Just as well. Eau Claire, a 5-year-old daughter of Point of Entry, was able to knock out her first career win after moving south to Tampa Bay Downs with trainer Arnaud Delacour for the winter, and now she’s in line for a repeat when stepping up as the likely favorite Wednesday in the featured event of a modest nine-race card at the Oldsmar, Fla., track.
Eau Claire, bred and owned by Berkshire Stud, will have Daniel Centeno back aboard when breaking from post 1 in a field of eight fillies and mares in the fifth race, an $18,600 turf mile governed by starter-allowance conditions. First post is 12:28 p.m. Eastern.
Delacour, who has wintered for years at Tampa, also is maintaining a small string at Turfway Park in Kentucky for the first time while also keeping a foothold at his year-round base at Fair Hill in northern Maryland. He was happy to see Eau Claire finally get through her maiden condition when she was a 7 1/2-length winner over the Tampa turf on Jan. 4 in her eighth career start.
Eau Claire is the 2-1 choice on the morning line of Tampa oddsmaker Mark Luther. Her chief competition in her first try versus winners figures to come from Investment Income (post 4, Samy Camacho) or Roundabout (post 5, Jose Ferrer), the respective two-three finishers in this same type of race four weeks ago.
Mostly sunny skies and a high of 79 degrees are in the Oldsmar forecast.
Turf stakes Saturday
Major stables from across the Atlantic Coast are expected to be well represented Saturday when the Tampa stakes schedule resumes with a pair of Grade 3 turf stakes, the Tampa Bay and Endeavour. Entries for both 1 1/16-mile races will be drawn Wednesday.
Todd Pletcher informed Tampa racing officials he intends to enter Emmanuel in the Tampa Bay after the 4-year-old colt got an extended break following a poor effort last August in the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby. Emmanuel, winner of the Pennine Ridge over the Belmont Park turf in June, is among a capacity field of 12 older horses expected for the 37th Tampa Bay.
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Verbal, trained by Chad Brown, is among the others, along with Mighty Heart, Field Pass, and Winfromwithin.
Pletcher and Brown both also will ship over runners for the filly-mare counterpart to the Tampa Bay, the 24th Endeavour. Pletcher has Scotish Star, while Brown will counter with Marketsegmentation. Brown has won four of the last 11 runnings of the Endeavour and the last two with Counterparty Risk (2021) and Bleecker Street (2022).
Purses for both races start at $150,000, with an additional $25,000 in bonuses available to Florida-breds.
Meanwhile, nominations were to be released early this week by the Tampa racing office for a quartet of Feb. 11 stakes led by the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis, a Kentucky Derby points qualifier, and the Suncoast Stakes, a Kentucky Oaks qualifier. Wonder Wheel, the reigning divisional champion, is expected to make her 3-year-old debut in the Suncoast.
◗ Maddie Rowland is no longer riding with a five-pound weight allowance after her apprenticeship expired last weekend with the one-year anniversary of her fifth career victory. Rowland, 19, won 60 races as an apprentice.
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