An intriguing field of 12 will race for $400,000 and 50 Kentucky Derby points in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby at Tampa Bay Downs on March 12. The 1 1/16 mile signature race for the Florida track headlines a strong card of stakes races that include numerous Canadian-owned and trained horses.
MRS. BARBARA, a finalist for Champion 2-Year-Old Filly in Canada for 2021, makes her 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks, worth $200,000 for Jim Lawson’s Spruce Stable. Mrs. Barbara (Bodemeister), won the Grade 3 Mazarine Stakes in her final outing last year. She will start from post one in the 1 1/16 mile turf race and Rafael Hernandez rides for trainer Mark Casse. The Florida Oaks is race 9 and has a field of nine.
Hall of Fame trainer ROGER ATTFIELD sends out Charles Fipke’s two star runners, LADY SPEIGHTSPERE and SHIRL’S SPEIGHT, in the Grade 2 Hillsborough Stakes and the Grade 3 Challenger Stakes respectively. Emma-Jayne Wilson will ride both horses.
CLASSIC CAUSEWAY, fresh from his big win in the Grade III Sam F. Davis Stakes on Feb. 12, will be favoured in the Tampa Bay Derby for trainer Brian Lynch. The Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby is the 11th race on the card, with a scheduled post time of 5:23 p.m. The first of 12 races is at 12:15 p.m.
The forecast for the day of racing is not ideal, however, as there is close to a 100 percent chance of rain.
Irad Ortiz, Jr., who was aboard for his Sam F. Davis Stakes victory, will again ride Classic Causeway for owners Kentucky West Racing, LLC and Clarke M. Cooper.
“He came out of the (Sam F. Davis) very well, he’s carrying good weight and he has great energy, so we’re counting our blessings,” Lynch said. “He seemed to really like the racetrack, so we thought the smart thing was to take him back over there and have a crack at the Tampa Bay Derby.”
Classic Causeway will bid to become the first horse since Destin in 2016 to win both of the Oldsmar oval’s Kentucky Derby prep races.
Among Classic Causeway’s Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby rivals are Giant Game, the third-place finisher in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar, trained by Dale Romans and to be ridden by Joe Talamo from the No. 5 post; Major General, winner of the Grade III Iroquois Stakes on Sept. 18 at Churchill Downs in his most recent start, trained by five-time Tampa Bay Derby-winning conditioner Todd Pletcher, with Javier Castellano named to ride from the No. 8 post; and two-time stakes winner and Sam F. Davis runner-up Shipsational, trained by Edward Barker, with Manuel Franco aboard from the No. 9 post.
Canadian owners Penny and Manfred Conrad own GOLDEN GLIDER, trained by Casse, who will start from post six in the Tampa Bay derby. The Kentucky-bred Ghostzapper colt was fifth in the Sam Davis.
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