Tampa Bay: Endeavour tops three-stakes card

Tampa Bay Downs will have a stakes trifecta Saturday, topped by the Grade 3, $150,000 Endeavour Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on turf. The $100,000 Lightning City Stakes going about five furlongs on the turf and the $60,000 Pelican Stakes at six furlongs on the main track are also on the 11-race program.

Trainer Arnaud Delacour has major players in two of the three stakes. Final Escrow will go for her third win from four career turf starts in the Endeavour, while Ageless shoots for her third straight win in the Lightning City.

Final Escrow was a consistent stakes-level runner on the dirt but has taken her game to another level since being moved to the turf last July. Final Escrow, 5, won two of her first three starts on the grass and returns to that surface Saturday. Her most recent start, a local prep for the Endeavour on Dec. 29, was moved to a sloppy main track but that didn’t faze Final Escrow as she roared from off the pace turning for home and drew away to an easy 9 1/4-length win.

Final Escrow has been equipped with blinkers for her last five starts. Delacour said the equipment was added to try and encourage Final Escrow to break sharply and lay closer to the pace.

“She was starting to lag back early in her races, and we didn’t want her to have too much to do coming from way back,” Delacour said. “She’s got a long stride and closes well, and we thought the blinkers would put her a bit closer when the time came to make her move.”

Two starts back in November, Final Escrow finished fifth over the Polytrack at Woodbine in the Grade 3 Maple Leaf Stakes at 1 1/4 miles. Delacour thinks his mare didn’t care for the surface, which he said was very tiring.

Cloud Scape will be trying stakes company for the first time but has to be considered after she used an explosive stretch rally to win her last start going away. The race was her second start for trainer Graham Motion and her second race following an 11-month layoff.

Other contenders in a wide-open Endeavour include Left a Message, who will be making her first start since finishing third in the Grade 3 Long Island Handicap last November at Aqueduct, and Floral Romance, from the Bill Mott barn. She was a troubled seventh in the Grade 3 Marshua’s River in her 2014 debut.

** Ageless will face Shrinking Violet in the Lightning City, a turf sprint for fillies and mares. Ageless won the local prep for the Lightning City, a race that was moved to the main track.

Shrinking Violet has won three of her last four outings dating back to July. Two starts back, she finished second in the Grade 3 Ontario Fashion at Woodbine.

The field also includes Cor Cor, a stakes winner on turf who was second in the Minaret on the main track last time out, and Guilio’s Jewel, who comes off a nine-week break and will be looking for her third straight win sprinting on the turf.

** In the Pelican, a six-furlong sprint for 4-year-olds and up, Sneaking Uponyou has scored strong back-to-back wins over the local strip and may be favored.

Action Andy, winner of last year’s Pelican and one of the top sprinters on the grounds the past two seasons, will be coming off a short break for trainer Carlos Garcia.

Good Lord, winner of last year’s Super Stakes locally, is a 10-time career winner.