Retired major league baseball player Victor Martinez played on five teams that reached the postseason, was an American League All-Star five times and slugged 246 home runs in his 16-year career, which ended in 2018.
But in the glow of a raucous winner’s-circle celebration late this afternoon at Tampa Bay Downs, he said nothing in his baseball career compares to experiencing his 3-year-old colt KING GUILLERMO, named for his late father, win the Grade II, $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby.
“My dad died when I was 6, and I always wanted to have a horse named for my dad,” an emotional Martinez said after King Guillermo posted a 4 ¾-length victory from 3-2 favorite Sole Volante in 1:42.63 for the mile-and-a-sixteenth distance with Martinez’s Venezuelan countryman, Samy Camacho, in the saddle.
The time was the third-fastest Tampa Bay Derby in the race’s 40 runnings. King Guillermo had won his maiden on the turf at Gulfstream with a hefty 88 Beyer Figure and was third in his most recent race behind Sole Volante in the Pulpit Stakes in November.
Here’s a YouTube video of the excitement:
“This is absolutely something else. I thank God for this opportunity and putting a great horse in my hands,” Martinez said. “My mom (Margot, part of the festive scene) taught me how to dream. She taught me dreams are for free. We believed in this horse and he made our dream come true.”
Another Venezuelan, Juan C. Avila, trains King Guillermo, who improved to 2-for-4 with the victory in his first start of 2020. He paid $100.40 to win, the second-biggest payoff in the 40-year history of the race, surpassed only by Bold Southerner’s $179.40 payoff in 1984.
The Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby is a “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points race, and King Guillermo earned 50 points with his victory – virtually assuring him a spot in the May 2 Run for the Roses, as long as his connections pay the late Triple Crown nomination fee. He was one of only two horses in the 12-horse field not yet nominated.
That bit of paperwork could wait Saturday.
“I hope he is going to the Kentucky Derby,” said Camacho, whose smile stretched almost to Caracas after the race. “I’m so happy, I say thank you to God and all the team – Mr. Juan Carlos Avila, the trainer, the owner, Victor Martinez, and everybody who made this dream possible.
“From the 3/8-mile pole I had a lot of horse and I was worried a little about Chance It and Sole Volante, but I had a lot of confidence in my horse because he was doing really well in the mornings and he felt strong,” Camacho said.
Sole Volante, the Grade III Sam F. Davis Stakes winner here four weeks ago, picked up 20 points with his second-place finish, 1 ¾ lengths ahead of Texas Swing – the other horse not nominated to the Triple Crown. Pace-setter Relentless Dancer held on for fourth, followed by second choice Chance It.
King Guillermo is a Kentucky-bred son of Uncle Mo, out of Slow Sand, by Dixieland Band. He was bred by Carhue Investments, Grouseridge Ltd. and Marengo Investments and was purchased by Martinez for $150,000 at the 2019 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s April Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training.
The winner’s share of $210,000 raised his career earnings to $240,350. King Guillermo’s previous victory came on Nov. 2 at Gulfstream Park West in a 1-mile, maiden special weight race on the turf, but the connections decided his workouts on the dirt at Gulfstream since early January merited a shot today.
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