Tampa Bay Downs sees boost in all-sources handle

All-sources handle at Tampa Bay Downs at the 2024-2025 meet was $377,972,374, a 4.5 percent increase over the $361,483,261 handled at the 2023-2024 meet, it was announced Wednesday.

There were 821 races run at the 90-day meet, 266 on turf. Average field size was 8.47 horses per race. At the 90-day meet in 2023-2024, there were 821 races run, 253 on turf. Average field size was 8.26 horses per race.

“When most tracks are struggling to offer full fields to betters, any increase is a positive sign,” Peter Berube, Tampa’s vice president/general manager, said in a release. “Credit goes to our racing secretary, Allison De Luca, and her crew for putting together a schedule our horsemen embraced and to the owners and trainers for presenting a quality product.”

Tampa Bay Downs handled $17.6 million on its Tampa Bay Derby card on March 8. At the 2023-2024 Tampa Bay meet, a communications outage between the bet-processing center at AmTote and the track resulted in the 2024 Tampa Bay Derby being run as a non-wagering event and the cancellation of the final race of that day’s card. Handle was trending in the $13.5 million before the outage occurred.

Tampa’s 100th anniversary season is scheduled to begin Nov. 19.

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