BY TAMPA BAY DOWNS PRESS OFFICE (Edited)

OLDSMAR, FL—Tampa Bay Downs begins their Centennial season of Thoroughbred racing Wednesday with a nine-race card and a 12:40 ET first race post time. Several stars are set to return for 2025-26 meet including Kathleen O’Connell, who won last year’s training title with 53 winners, and Samuel Marin, last season’s leading rider with 116 winners.

Marin received feelers during the summer about shifting his base of operations to the New York but elected to spend the winter at Tampa Bay Downs.

The interest from northern trainers and jockey agents came as no surprise. The 24-year-old from Venezuela followed his Oldsmar campaign by finishing second in the standings at Monmouth Park in New Jersey over the summer with 66 victories, including a meet-high nine stakes triumphs.

Marin was the leader at Monmouth in mount purse earnings with almost $21.9-million, bettering the track’s wins leader Paco Lopez.

After discussing a possible move with his agent, former jockey Mike Moran, Marin spent about a week considering the pros and cons of competing in the Big Apple.

“New York is the place where everyone wants to be and a lot of the New York trainers helped me out at Monmouth,” he said. “So for a little while, I thought I would do it.

“But we did great here last year and I had a lot of fun. I get to compete against great riders, I get a lot of support from the horsemen and the Tampa fans are really cool. A lot of people are very positive with us and it gives you a lot of confidence when you have that kind of backing.”

Moran, the leading jockey here in 1978 when the track was called Florida Downs, is a master motivator with plenty of confidence that Marin can repeat his title. 

“[Marin] already has a lot of good business. If we can get lucky and get him on the right horses, I think he could set the [single-season Tampa Bay Downs] record,” Moran said, referring to Antonio Gallardo’s mark of 147 winners in 2014-15. “[Marin] is strong, he’s smart, he’s good out of the gate and he does his homework.

“He knows where he is supposed to be during a race and is not afraid to use his horse to get that spot.”

There is no question Marin will face spirited competition from a veteran cast.

Other jockeys returning include Gallardo, a five-time Tampa Bay Downs champion who captured his sixth title at Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania this year; Daniel Centeno, a six-time wins leader at Tampa Bay; and Pablo Morales, the Presque Isle Downs runner-up.

“I’m 100-percent focused on what I want. This is my life,” Marin said. “Even when I get done riding for the day, I still want to keep riding.”

While the saying “youth must be served” seems appropriate to Marin, the race for leading trainer will likely fall under the heading “experience is the best teacher.”

A veteran cast is headed by O’Connell, a four-time Tampa Bay champion overall, who first arrived at Florida Downs in 1976 to gallop horses. She began her own stable in 1981 and has saddled 2,597 winners as of Tuesday, with nine graded stakes victories to her credit.

“We’re looking forward to having a good meet, but it never gets easy. There are a lot of good trainers at Tampa. It’s always a tough meet and a competitive meet. Everyone knows how good the [dirt] surface is and how good the turf is. And when you get south Florida shippers from trainers like [Shug] McGaughey and [Chad] Brown, they come here loaded for bear.”

For the first time, Tampa Bay Downs will employ drone technology throughout the meet to provide aerial views of the action for spectators and TV audiences. The drone shots will be displayed on the jumbo video board in the infield and televisions throughout the facility. 

On the wagering front, the track is introducing a takeout rate of 10% on all show wagers made on-track, including MBet (the takeout will remain unchanged at 17% on off-track show wagers). 

The 2025-26 stakes schedule begins Saturday, Dec. 6 with the $125,000 Inaugural Stakes for 2-year-olds and the $125,000 Sandpiper Stakes for 2-year-old fillies. Both races are contested at the six-furlong distance.

Return to the November 18 issue of Wire to Wire