Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Almond Roca looks imposing
The stakes program at the 2017-18 Tampa Bay Downs meet gets kicked up a notch Saturday when three stakes anchor a Skyway Festival card that gets under way at 12:12 p.m. Eastern.
Twin seven-furlong races for 3-year-olds – the $125,000 Gasparilla for fillies and the open $125,000 – will be followed by the $50,000 Wayward Lass on an 11-race program that also includes a couple of interesting maiden races and a number of big fields.
The two biggest stakes dates are still to come at the fivemonth-plus Tampa meet, which runs through May 6. They are Feb. 10 (Sam F. Davis Stakes) and March 10 (Tampa Bay Derby).
Here is a brief rundown of the Saturday stakes:
GASPARILLA (RACE 3, 1:12)
Unlike with the Pasco, there’s the likelihood of a heavy favorite in the 34th Gasparilla: Almond Roca, whose 9 1/4-length triumph in the sixfurlong Sandpiper last month at Tampa marked a first stakes win for the Speightstown filly and might well have scared away some prospective opposition. Only five other fillies will line up against her.
“She seems to have done well since her last race,” said Graham Motion, who trains Almond Roca for the Chadds Ford Stable of Phyllis Wyeth. “She had a nice breeze over the track last weekend,” an easy five-furlong move in 1:03 on Jan. 12. “Hopefully, she will handle the stretch-out to seven furlongs.”
Almond Roca will be ridden again by Pablo Morales when she breaks from post 2. If she stubs her toe, the most likely upsetter is another daughter of Speightstown, Barrier Island (post 5, Manny Franco), who turns back slightly while getting first-time Lasix for trainer Shug McGaughey. She won a Gulfstream Park maiden race last month at a mile.
PASCO (RACE 8, 3:42)
Jason Servis enjoyed the best season of his 16-year training career in 2017, with 112 wins and nearly $5 million in earnings. This year, he’s off to a quick start, with Firenze Fire and Bishop’s Pond already having won stakes up north.
Servis will take aim at his third stakes win at a third different track in three weeks with World of Trouble, who makes his first start for Servis after two promising starts to begin his career. In a field of 10, World of Trouble is listed as a 2-1 program favorite for this 19th running of the Pasco.
Servis said he wanted to run World of Trouble six furlongs in a Florida-bred first-level allowance a couple of weeks ago at Gulfstream, but the race didn’t go.
“Ideally, going seven-eighths in a stake and having to ship isn’t the best way to go, but we wanted to get started, and this is what we came up with,” he said.
World of Trouble, with leading jockey Antonio Gallardo to ride, will break from post 7. The Kantharos colt was privately purchased by Michael Dubb after winning his August debut by 14 lengths for Kathleen O’Connell, then was turned over to Servis at Palm Meadows following a runner-up finish in a Florida Sire Stakes event and a brief freshening in Ocala, Fla.
Bottom line, it’s a demanding comeback spot.
Other top contenders include He Hate Me (post 1, Franco), last seen winning the Tremont in June for Sagamore Farm, and the respective 2-3-4 finishers in the Inaugural last month: Arazi Like Move (post 4, Scott Spieth), Twin Farms (post 9, Daniel Centeno), and His Name Is Sue (post 3, Wilmer Garcia).
WAYWARD LASS (RACE 10, 4:50)
It’s not only the 102 Beyer Speed Figure earned by Tapa Tapa Tapa in a 12 1/2-length romp when returning from a seven-month layoff last month that makes the gray Tapit filly the obvious favorite among a field of eight fillies and mares in this 1 1/16-mile dirt race.
No, it’s also her victory last February in the Suncoast Stakes over Elate – a 2017 Eclipse Award finalist in the 3-year-old filly division – that could convince many bettors to make her a single in their endof-card multirace plays.
Indeed, the 34th Wayward Lass looks like it could become the third victory in as many local starts for Tapa Tapa Tapa, who will have Morales back aboard when she breaks from post 2. Trained by Tim Hamm for Beau Ravine LLC, Tapa Tapa Tapa will be asked to outrun the likes of Well Humored (post 4, Centeno), Blue Collar (post 5, Gallardo), and Tejana (post 6, Franco), none of whom has won a stakes.