BY BROCK SHERIDAN

Trainer Gerald Bennett tries to check off a long-held goal Saturday with Naughty Rascal in Saturday’s Grade 3 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby. The Florida-bred colt will face six other 3-year-olds going a mile-and-a-sixteenth in Tampa Bay Downs’ marquee event with a $400,000 purse including $50,000 in Florida-bred bonuses presented by the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association. The race also offers 105 Kentucky Derby qualifying points allocated on a 50-25-15-10-5 basis.

A victory Saturday would nearly assure Naughty Rascal a spot in the Run for the Roses starting gate, but perhaps just as important, provides the 80-year-old Bennett a prize he has long coveted. Despite nine training titles at Tampa Bay Downs from 2015-16 through 2022-23, Bennett has never won the Tampa Bay Derby.

“When you race at Tampa, that’s like your Kentucky Derby,” Bennett told the Tampa Bay Downs press team in February. “Winning the [Tampa Bay Derby] is my goal every year.”

In a career that has spanned 49 years, Bennett ranks 16th all-time among North American trainers with 4,189 victories from 20,605 starts through Wednesday. However, only two of those starts have come in the Tampa Bay Derby.

Crimson Knight, whom Bennett and his wife Mary owned under their Winning Stables banner with Raymond Rech, finished second to Florida-bred Watch Me Go in 2011 at odds of 86-1. Bennett also saddled All I Can Get to a fifth-place finish in the 2007 Tampa Bay Derby won by future Kentucky Derby-winner Street Sense.

 

Bennett tries again with a longshot as Naughty Rascal is listed at 20-1 on the morning line. Bennett, however, is no stranger to adversity.

Last summer, Bennett was hospitalized to have a benign tumor surgically removed from his colon. However, in September cancer was found in his colon, liver and a lung and he began chemotherapy. The therapy was stopped in January when Bennett had more surgery to remove benign tumors from his bladder.

Mary says his Thoroughbreds have been instrumental in his fight.

“Even when he was lying in bed in all that pain, he’d say he had to check his phone messages,” Mary said. “He always has the horses in his mind. That’s what keeps him going.

“They are his life. A lot of people, they say they have a sixth sense about a horse. I think Gerry has a seventh sense. He can just look in a horse’s eye and get the vibrations.”

Bennett agrees that Naughty Rascal has provided motivation.

“This horse is what you wait for,” Bennett said.

And Bennett continues to believe in the bay colt, even after a sub-par sixth in the $200,000 Sam F. Davis won by John Hancock at Tampa Bay on Feb. 8—the only time in seven career starts he has finished out of the top three. In one start this year prior to the Sam F. Davis, Naughty Rascal was placed first after finishing second to Tampa Bay Derby-rival Owen Almighty in the $92,000 Pasco going seven furlongs at Tampa Bay on Jan. 11.

“He wasn’t himself [before the Sam F. Davis],” Bennett said. “Before the Pasco, he was buckin’ and playin’ and squealing even before we saddled him. He got beat only a length, and [jockey] Edwin [Gonzalez] told me he knew [Owen Almighty] was coming down or he could have made it closer or even gotten there,” Bennett said. “He’s coming up to this race a lot better. He seems to be happier, so we’re going to give him a chance to see what he’s really capable of going this distance against these horses.”

Last year the versatile Naughty Rascal won the $95,000 Proud Man going six furlongs in his second career start in August and the $95,000 Armed Forces going a mile on the turf in November, both at Gulfstream Park. He was also third behind Crazy Frazy in the $79,000 Aventura going a mile in September at Gulfstream and second to Donut God in the $80,000 Inaugural going six furlongs in December in Tampa. 

 

Samy Camacho will ride Naughty Rascal for the first time but rode the colt during a four-furlong work in :48.60 on Feb. 27 at Tampa Bay Downs.

“He’s a versatile horse. He can be in front, he can race in mid-pack and he can be in last early and come from behind,” Camacho said.

“A lot of horses come here and don’t like this track. He has been training here and raced here so I think that gives us a step up. And I believe in him because of Gerald Bennett. I don’t worry about the competition or the morning line. I’m confident every time I ride for Gerry.”

Naughty Rascal will break from post six.

 

Naughty Rascal sports a career record of four wins with a second and a third while earning $224,630 for Ron Pugliese’s Mr Pug LLC and Jim Georgeades’s J.P.G. 2 LLC. Georgeades purchased Naughty Rascal for $39,000 out of the de Meric Sales consignment during last year’s March Sale of 2-year-olds at Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company.
(Naughty Rascal’s Under Tack Video / Walking Video)

Naughty Rascal also passed through the OBS auction ring at the 2023 Winter Mixed Sale where he was taken for $22,000 by Silvestre Avila out of the Boutte consignment.

By Solera Farm’s Rogueish out of Baby Doll, by Smarty Jones, Naughty Rascal was bred in Florida by Edward Seltzer, Beverly Anderson and Helen and Joseph Barbazon.

Naughty Rascal tries to become the first Florida-bred to win the Tampa Bay Derby since Watch Me Go. Seven other Florida-breds have won the race including Limehouse in 2004, Marco Bay (1993), Careful Gesture (1992), Storm Predictions (1989), Phantom Jet (1987), Bold Southerner (1984) and Reinvested (1982).

In addition to Owen Almighty, who will be ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr.; the field includes 8-5 program favorite Chancer McPatrick and jockey Flavien Prat, Hill Road with rider Tyler Gaffalione, Jose Ortiz is set to ride Brodeur, Filoso will have Dylan Davis up and Florent Geroux will guide Patch Adams.

Return to the March 7 issue of Wire to Wire