Record stakes purses at Tampa Bay Downs meet

More than five months of live action at Tampa Bay Downs gets underway Saturday when the Oldsmar, Fla., track opens the gates for its 93rd season with a 10-race card.

The status quo remains largely in place at Tampa, which is good news, given how popular the track’s simulcast signal has become on the national scene. All-sources handle averaged more than $4 million at the 2017-18 meet, and similar numbers can be expected for 2018-19.

Officially, there are 91 dates to this season, but that counts two oddball summer days (this past July 1 and next June 30) run so that Tampa complies with an arcane state statute to ensure additional simulcast revenue as a year-round venue. Otherwise, there will be 89 dates through May 5, the Sunday after the Kentucky Derby, and the highlights sound familiar: The Tampa Bay Derby and its lead-in, the Sam F. Davis Stakes, once again will draw national attention as qualifying-points races toward the Kentucky Derby. Both will anchor multi-stakes cards, with the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis on Feb. 9 and the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby on March 9.

Opening day offers more standard fare, with the usual mix of claiming, maiden, starter, and allowance races making up a card that starts at 12:25 p.m. Eastern. The nominal co-features go as races 8 and 9, both of them first-level allowances with purses of $22,500.

The first stakes will be run a week from Saturday, Dec. 1, when twin turf sprints lead off a 28-race schedule worth a track-record $3.74 million. Those races are the $100,000 Lightning City for fillies and mares and its 3-year-old and up counterpart, the $100,000 Turf Dash.

More than $1 million in stakes purses will be up for grabs on Tampa Bay Derby Day, with the Grade 2 Hillsborough and Grade 3 Florida Oaks among the supporting events.

“Everything is in place to enjoy another successful season,” Peter Berube, vice president and general manager at Tampa, said in a prepared release. “The combination of our stakes schedule and overnight program, our outstanding main track and turf course and great weather make Tampa Bay Downs one of the most attractive winter racing sites in the country.”

Virtually every leading horseman from recent seasons will be back, including jockeys Antonio Gallardo and Daniel Centeno and trainers Gerald Bennett and Kathleen O’Connell. Furthermore, many of America’s leading trainers will be shipping horses with regularity across the Florida peninsula from their Atlantic Coast locales, including Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher, Bill Mott, Mark Casse, and Graham Motion.

Tampa averaged less than $200,000 in daily ontrack handle last year (not counting imported simulcasts), meaning more than 95 percent of betting came from off-track sources. Still, ontrack fans will be availed to a number of improvements and new promotions this meet, including new self-service betting terminals and a redesigned main entrance that showcases memorabilia in a display titled “Tracking Our History.”

Racing will be conducted three days a week (Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays), with Sundays being added starting Dec. 23 for four-day weeks through the end of the meet.