Wonder Wheel, Casse-Trained Champion, Returns at Tampa

Two important stakes races for newly-turned three-year-olds take place at Tampa Bay Downs on February 11, the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes and the $150,000 Suncoast Stakes for fillies. The Davis is worth $250,000 and is at 1 1/16 miles and the Suncast is at 1 mile and 40 yards.

Woodbine’s perennial leading trainer Mark Casse will saddle two fillies in the Suncoast and most eyes will be on WONDER WHEEL (Into Mischief), winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) at Keeneland in November and voted Champion 2-Year-Old Filly at the Eclipse Awards. Casse is also sending out the Ontario-bred filly TICKER TAPE HOME (Medaglia D’Oro) in the Suncoast and the stakes-placed dark bay is a Woodbine Oaks contender.

Casse has two colts entered in the Davis, a race he won in 2018 with John Oxley’s Ontario-bred Flameaway.

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CHAMPIONS DREAM, a grey colt by Justify, was a closing second in the Pasco Stakes on Jan. 14 and won the Grade 3 Nashua Stakes for trainer Danny Gargan last fall. CLASSIC CAR WASH, owned by Gary Barber, is on a two-race winning streak as the son of Noble Bird recently won a Florida-bred allowance race on Jan. 6 at Gulfstream Park.

Both the Suncoast and the Sam F. Davis are part of a points system leading to the Kentucky Derby (G1) at Churchill Downs in Louisville the first weekend of May, with the Suncoast awarding points to the first five finishers toward qualifying for the Longines Kentucky Oaks on May 5 and the Sam F. Davis awarding points to the top five toward qualifying for the Kentucky Derby, Presented by Woodford Reserve, on May 6.

Points for both races will be awarded on a 20-8-6-4-2 scale.

Nine fillies have been entered for the Suncoast, with 12 colts and geldings entered in the Sam F. Davis. Two other stakes will also be contested Saturday, both at a distance of 6 furlongs on the main track: the $100,000 Pelican Stakes for horses 4 years old and upward and the $50,000 Minaret for fillies and mares 4 and upward.

Casse said about Wonder Wheel’s return in the Suncoast, “She is ready. All systems are go,” he remarked of Wonder Wheel, whose actual birthday was celebrated Tuesday.

As he has been in all five of her races, jockey Tyler Gaffalione will again be aboard. Wonder Wheel won four of those two-year-old starts, capped by victories on Oct. 7 in the Grade I Darley Alcibiades and on Nov. 4 in the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, both at Keeneland. She won the latter race with a dramatic, sustained rally from 11th place early, drawing away under Gaffalione to a three-length victory.

Career earnings for the D. J. Stable-owned star are $1,550,725.

Casse has been excited by Wonder Wheel’s potential since she arrived at his Casse Training Center in Ocala last March. “We got her in the fall [of 2021] and broke her, and she acted like she was better than average early last year. But we really started singing her praises at Saratoga,” he said.

Wonder Wheel finished second there on Sept. 4 in the Grade I Spinaway to Leave No Trace, who was second in the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. But it was the way Wonder Wheel went about her lessons that most impressed her conditioner.

“Anything she does, she does it effortlessly,” Casse said. “She just amazes me how she trains. Most things other horses have to work hard to accomplish, she will do it easily. That is usually the first indication [of an outstanding racehorse].

“Tyler has loved her from the start,” Casse said. “Let’s see where she goes from here, but she probably is the best 2-year-old I have ever trained.”

Casse does not expect an easy time of things, by any means. The Suncoast field includes Eclipse Award-winning trainer Todd Pletcher’s Julia Shining, who won the Grade II Demoiselle Stakes on Dec. 3 at Aqueduct, and trainer Arnaud Delacour’s locally-based Opus Forty Two, winner here of the Gasparilla Stakes on Jan. 14.

The morning line favourite for the Davis is DUBYUNELL (pronounced ‘w n l’), a Good Magic colt who won the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes in December at Aqueduct. Jose Ortiz will ride the chestnut colt for trainer Danny Gargan.

Trainer Saffie Jospeh, Jr. will send out PRAIRIE HAWK, by Curlin, and the WinStar and Peachtree Stable colt has won two of three races.