Endeavour, Tampa Bay draw deep, quality fields

They couldn’t have come up much tougher. Twin Grade 3 turf stakes set for Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar, Fla., have drawn highly competitive lineups of older horses, with 10 fillies and mares going in the Endeavour and a full field of 12 in the Tampa Bay Stakes.

High-profile stables from the Atlantic Coast are represented in a big way. Four-time champion trainer Chad Brown has a formidable duo in both spots, with Bleecker Street and In Italian in the Endeavour, and L’Imperator and Devamani in the Tampa Bay.

The purse for each 1 1/16-mile race is $150,000, with another $25,000 paid to the winner if he or she is a registered Florida-bred.

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First post for a 10-race card is 12:13 p.m. Eastern. The Endeavour (race 6) goes at 2:42 and the Tampa Bay (race 8) at 3:46.

In prior years, the Tampa Bay and Endeavour had been held on the same day as the Sam F. Davis, which this year is set for next Saturday and is a 10-4-2-1 points qualifier for the Kentucky Derby. Now these two races are part of what management has labeled Turf Champions Day, with the Davis undercard consisting of the Suncoast, a Kentucky Oaks qualifier, and the Pelican and Minaret, twin sprints for older horses.

There’s a possibility the turf course may have some give to it as forecasters are calling for a 40 percent chance of rain Saturday with a high of 66.

Endeavour Stakes

Lady Speightspeare, a speedy 4-year-old with a 4-for-5 record, found a lighter spot in the Endeavour than last Saturday, when she was scratched from the Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Gulfstream Park, which was won with a 100 Beyer Speed Figure by the Brown-trained Regal Glory. Lady Speightspeare earned 95 and 93 Beyers in her last two starts. Winner of the Grade 1 Natalma at 2 for Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield, Lady Speightspeare, a Charles Fipke homebred, will have Emma-Jayne Wilson up breaking from post 3.

Bleecker Street (post 2, Hector Diaz Jr.) is unbeaten in three career starts, albeit with a high Beyer of just 81. In Italian (post 7, Samy Camacho) returned from an eight-month layoff by dominating a Jan. 12 Tampa turf allowance with an 85 Beyer to set herself up for this stakes debut.

Stunning Princess (post 4, Pablo Morales) enters on an upward tick after finishing a fast-closing second in the Tropical Oaks at Gulfstream.

“I thought she had the potential to be one of the best in the division as a 2-year-old,” said trainer Danny Gargan. “She’s really come around since we put blinkers on her” nearly a year ago.

“She’s always had a lot of talent and she’s getting better with age. I really like her in this spot.”

Other considerations include Oyster Box, a Graham Motion filly with plenty of stakes experience, and Katama Moonlight and Jezebel’s Kitten, the respective one-two finishers in a Dec. 10 turf allowance at Gulf.

This is the 23rd Endeavour. Brown has won three of the last 10 runnings, with Zagora (2012), Testa Rossi (2015), and Counterparty Risk (2021).

Tampa Bay Stakes

Attfield and Wilson team with the enigmatic Shirl’s Speight (post 4) in the 36th Tampa Bay after the 5-year-old Fipke homebred got back on track last month with a nice-looking allowance win over the local turf. He figures among a core of lukewarm favorites that also will include L’Imperator (post 6, Camacho), fifth as the favorite in the Grade 2 Fort Lauderdale seven weeks ago at Gulf, and Devamani (post 10, Morales), whose apparent Beyer edge is partly offset by the fact he hasn’t raced in eight months.

If not for the layoff, Devamani would be strictly the horse to beat. The 8-year-old French-bred won the Grade 2 Knickerbocker in 2020 and Grade 3 Monmouth Stakes last June prior to going on a break for Brown, who has worked him 10 times since late November at the Palm Meadows training center.

Fringe players include Cellist, newly gelded since returning from a five-month break; English Bee, a 6-year-old with a Beyer high of 99; Get Smokin, a speedy danger for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse; and Clear Vision, an upset winner of the Grade 3 Tropical Turf last month at Gulf for 23-year-old trainer Matt O’Connor.

Carpenters Call is the lone also-eligible.