Tampa Bay Downs has tweaked its 2025-26 racing calendar, while maintaining a 90-day schedule.
Sunday racing, originally scheduled to begin Dec. 21, will get underway Jan. 4. The “lost” dates (Dec. 21 and 28) will be made up on Thursday, Feb. 5 and Thursday, Feb. 12.
Tampa Bay Downs currently races on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. With the exception of Christmas, Dec. 25 when the track will be closed in its entirety, Tampa Bay Downs is open every day for simulcast wagering, no-limits action and tournament play in The Silks Poker Room and golf fun and instruction at The Downs Golf Practice Facility.
Friday, Dec. 26 is Calendar Day, with the first 5,000 patrons through the gates receiving the 2026 edition free of charge (with paid admission). The theme is the track’s centennial celebration, and a sneak peek reveals the calendar is an artistic triumph, with pictures from the track’s beginning years blending into more recent yet similar photographs. Gates will open at 11 a.m.
Thoroughbred racing continues Wednesday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:20 p.m.
In today’s action, trainer Gerald Bennett and jockey Samy Camacho teamed for two victories. They won the second race with Cash the Check, a 2-year-old Florida-bred filly owned by Bennett’s Winning Stables. Cash the Check was claimed from the race for $16,000 by trainer Tony Wilson for new owner Happy Tenth Stable.
Bennett and Camacho added the fifth race on the turf with Aegon Targaryen, a 3-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Team Equistaff.
In the sixth race, an allowance/optional claiming event, 3-year-old filly Eunomia justified her 1-10 odds with a 1 ¼-length triumph from U Lite Up My Life. The time for the mile-and-40-yard distance was 1:39.47, 1.33 seconds off the track record.
Owned by St. Elias Stable, WSS Racing, Turf Express, Inc., and Stefania Farms, Eunomia was ridden by Daniel Centeno, who came right back to win the seventh on the turf aboard 5-year-old Florida-bred gelding Heathguard. Lambholm Stable is the owner and Roy Lerman the trainer of Heathguard.
Leading jockey Samuel Marin also won two races. He was victorious in the third race on the turf on Fortunate Ryder, a 3-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Joel W. Sainer and trained by J. David Braddy. Marin also won the eighth race on Litigant, a 9-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by GOP Racing Stable and trained by Gerard Ochoa.
The mother-daughter combination of trainer Kelly R. Spanabel and jockey Skyler Spanabel won the ninth and final race on the turf with Its Satisfactual, a 4-year-old Florida-bred filly owned by 4 Aces Racing Stable.
