Leading jockey Samuel Marin was 5 years old when Daniel Centeno won the first of his six Tampa Bay Downs riding titles during the 2006-2007 meet with 125 winners.
While the Oldsmar oval has boasted a number of dominant jockeys over the last six decades, none have approached the level of superiority enjoyed by Centeno for four consecutive seasons, from 2006-2010.
Centeno rode 540 winners here during that period, sweeping all four titles while averaging 1.48 winners each racing day. As much as his skills and toughness, his attention to detail – gaining insights from workouts, studying past performances and watching replays – set him apart.
In the summer of 2010, for good measure, Centeno traveled to Erie, Pa., to ride the Presque Isle Downs meet, taking home the No. 1 trophy with 100 winners. He scored 278 victories in 2010, a career best.
Centeno made an effort to turn back the clock in late January and early February, riding 10 winners to earn the Martin’s Italian Jockey of the Month Award.
Additional Tampa Bay Downs crowns in 2012-2013 and 2016-2017 had given him six, tying Mike Manganello for the most in track history. Centeno is the track’s all-time leader with number of victories, with 1,605, and stakes winners, with 59.
The 54-year-old Venezuela product, who rode 847 winners in his homeland before coming to the United States for good in 2003, is 24 shy of the 3,500 mark in North America. He is fifth in the Oldsmar standings with 19 winners, rounding out an all-Venezuelan top five of Marin, Samy Camacho, Sonny Leon, Cipriano Gil and Centeno.
Centeno, who won 16 races last year at Colonial Downs in Virginia for a seventh-place finish, with mount earnings of more than $1.1-million, has kept a fairly low profile this meet. In a competition dominated by the top few, he has averaged fewer than three rides a performance.
That’s the way sports are, of course. Most fans seem to prefer their heroes of yesteryear slip quietly into the background rather than call it a day all of a sudden. Be sure of this: No one is suggesting Centeno hang up his tack, not as long as he is winning his share of races and enjoys his job.
And in his 22nd season at Tampa Bay Downs, Centeno appears to be enjoying race-riding as much as he ever has.
“This is like home for me now. I love it here. I like the track, I like the horsemen and the people who work here and I love seeing the crowds and the families that enjoy racing,” he said.
As for the sacrifices he’s had to make over the years, he accepts them as a fair if not always pleasant tradeoff. Reducing, for one, which he sometimes does a day or two a week (“I might have to take off 1 pound or a maximum of 2 pounds when we’ve had a couple of days off, but I watch my diet”).
If you want to argue he’s not the best jockey Tampa Bay Downs has produced, there better be a debate first. His 12 career graded-stakes victories include two editions of the Tampa Bay Derby: in 2009 with Musket Man and 2014 with Ring Weekend, when the race was a Grade II, and few would suggest he is incapable of repeating if he gets on the right horse.
Two seasons ago here, Centeno met Manganello – winner of 2,598 races, including the 1970 Kentucky Derby on Dust Commander, and a steward for 25 years – when he and his wife Kitty were visiting from Lexington, Ky. They quickly formed a mutual admiration society, equally aware of the sacrifices they needed to make to stay on top at a mid-tier (but not in Manganello’s day) racetrack.
“I didn’t really know much about his career,” Centeno said. “Then he and his wife started sharing stories, and I was amazed to learn what he accomplished. Everything was completely different back then.”
It can be lonely at the top – perhaps Marin is already finding that out. But it’s also a place from which to set a standard, as Manganello did and which Centeno continues to build on.
“He (Centeno) is very sincere and a good, down-to-earth person,” Manganello said after their meeting. “It’s an honor to be tied for the most titles with someone of his caliber.”
Now, Centeno is next to Marin in the jockeys’ room, giving the veteran a first-hand look at himself, sort of, when he was trying to make a name for himself 19 years ago.
Centeno says the best advice he can offer Marin is to keep things the same, just fine-tune what’s already working.
“We’ll watch a replay together and he’ll look at a mistake he made and say ‘I don’t want to do that again,’ ” Centeno said. “He wants to do better than he is right now. He learns something every day. Right now he can ride with anyone, so keep doing what he is doing and don’t change a lot.”
Marin wins Jockeys’ Guild honor. While Centeno has been “waking up the echoes” of his dominance of the Oldsmar oval riding colony from 2006 through 2010 the last few weeks, Marin was voted Jockeys’ Guild Jockey of the Week for the period of Feb. 9-15. The Guild represents more than 1,050 active, retired and permanently disabled jockeys in the United States.
Marin was 13-for-30 for the week and rode five winners on Feb. 13. He added three victories Saturday, including the $100,000 Turf Dash Stakes aboard trainer Mark Casse’s grass specialist My Boy Prince, Canada’s 2023 Sovereign Award Champion 2-Year-Old Colt.
Marin added three victories Sunday. Last year’s leading Tampa Bay Downs rider, he is atop the standings with 83 winners, 28 more than runner-up Samy Camacho.
Marin’s week also included victories for prominent trainers Miguel Clement, Jose Francisco D’Angelo, Derek Ryan, Tom Proctor and Claude “Shug” McGaughey, III.
Other nominees for Jockeys’ Guild Jockey of the Week included Stewart Elliott, Manny Franco, Tyler Gaffalione and Edwin Maldonado.
Around the oval. Trainer Michael W. Wright sent out back-to-back winners today. He won the fourth race with 9-year-old gelding Embrace My Uncle, owned by his wife Gina Wright and ridden by apprentice jockey Cesar Gonzalez. Embrace My Uncle was claimed from the race for $12,500 by trainer Michael Simone for new owner Paterpop Racing.
Wright added the fifth race on the turf with Crumlin Lad, a 6-year-old gelding owned by Angela Rutledge and ridden by Jesus Castanon.
Thoroughbred racing continues Saturday with a 10-race card beginning at 12:15 p.m. On tap are the third legs of the Tampa Turf Test starter handicap series, for older horses which have started for a claiming price of $16,000 or less in 2025-26. Both races will be contested at a distance of a mile-and-an-eighth.
The Males Division of the Tampa Turf Test is the eighth race, with a field of 10 geldings 5-and-older set to start. The morning-line favorite at 2-1 is 8-year-old gelding Ready to Fly, who is owned and trained by Juan Arriagada and will be ridden by Samy Camacho.
The 10th race, for fillies and mares, has drawn an overflow field of 14 runners. Only 12 are permitted to start. The cast includes trainer Gregg Sacco’s 5-year-old mare Kindred Hearts who won the second leg of the series at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on Jan. 17. Kindred Hearts is 7-2 on the morning line – second choice behind trainer Gerald Bennett’s 4-year-old filly Crafty Collector, who will open at 3-1 with Daniel Centeno aboard.
Tampa Bay Downs races each Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and is open every day except Easter, April 5 for simulcast wagering, no-limits action and tournament play in The Silks Poker Room and professional instruction and pleasure at The Downs Golf Practice Facility.
