Win for the Money, a Grade I winner who finished third in a pair of graded-stakes races at Saratoga last summer, is expected to compete Saturday in the 40th running of the $175,000, mile-and-a-sixteenth Tampa Bay Stakes on the Tampa Bay Downs turf course.
The 7-year-old gelding, who won the Grade I Rogers Woodbine Mile in September of 2024 and was third last August in the Grade I FanDuel Fourstardave Stakes, is one of eight older horses currently listed as probable for the Tampa Bay Stakes. Win for the Money is owned by Live Oak Plantation and trained by Mark Casse, who won the race in 2018 with Live Oak’s homebred World Approval, the previous year’s Eclipse Award Champion Turf Male and Breeders’ Cup Mile winner.
Also scheduled on Saturday’s card is the 27th edition of the Grade III, $175,000 Endeavour Stakes for fillies and mares 4-years-old-and-upward at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the turf. Among the current probables is 4-year-old filly Scythian, owned by Lawrence Goichman and trained by the 2025 Eclipse Award Champion Trainer, Bill Mott.
The lightly raced Scythian won the 2024 Grade II Miss Grillo Stakes on the turf at Belmont At The Big A for Mott, who won back-to-back runnings of the Endeavour in 2005-06 with Delta Princess and My Lordship.
Mott is also expected to enter 4-year-old colt Simulate in the Tampa Bay Stakes, a race the trainer won in 2002 with Boastful, owned by Kinsman Stable. Simulate is owned by Claiborne Farm and Adele B. Dilschneider.
Trainer Claude “Shug” McGaughey, III – like Mott and Casse, a member of the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame – is expected to go after his fifth Tampa Bay Stakes trophy with Sherlock’s Jewel, a 6-year-old gelding owned by Wharton Connell Racing.
Other probables for the Tampa Bay Stakes as of early this afternoon include CJ Thoroughbreds and Mo Speed Racing’s 4-year-old colt Tom’s Magic, who was second in the Grade I Hollywood Derby on Nov. 29 at Del Mar; 5-year-old gelding Spellcast, owned by WinStar Farm and Blazing Meadows Farm; Heathguard, a 6-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Lambholm Stable; Brant Laue and Recovery Stable’s 4-year-old colt Innately Good; and 7-year-old gelding Britain’s Kitten, owned by Bella Mia Stables.
Joining Scythian as probables for the Endeavour are McGaughey’s 5-year-old mare Belle of Rights, owned by Emory A. Hamilton; trainer George R. “Rusty” Arnold, II’s 4-year-old filly Love You Anyway; and trainer Saffie A. Joseph, Jr.’s 5-year-old mare Public Defender.
McGaughey captured the 2023 Endeavour with Phipps Stable’s Surprisingly. Arnold, who has won the Tampa Bay Stakes three times – most recently in 2010 with Karelian – would be bidding for his first Endeavour victory with Love You Anyway, who finished second in the Grade III Pebbles Stakes on Nov. 23 at Aqueduct in her most recent start. She is owned by Bregman Family Racing LLC.
Public Defender is 5-for-11 for trainer Joseph and owner Miller Racing, LLC. She made her career stakes debut on Dec. 20 at Gulfstream Park, finishing third in the Suwannee River Stakes. Joseph, her conditioner, is best known to Oldsmar racing fans as the trainer of 7-year-old Skippylongstocking, who has won the last three runnings of Tampa Bay Downs’s Grade III Michelob Ultra Challenger Stakes and on Saturday made more fans by upsetting the Grade I Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream.
Also probable for the Endeavour are Woodford Thoroughbreds, LLC’s 6-year-old Aussie Girl and 5-year-old Madame Mischief, owned by Amo Racing USA, LLC.
Around the oval. Charlie Marquez celebrated his 23rd birthday today in grand style, riding two winners. Marquez captured the second race on 6-year-old gelding Bang a Rang for owner Ronald A. Jennings and trainer Michael Simone. In the seventh race on the turf, Marquez engineered a whirlwind stretch rally aboard 3-year-old filly El Ma’any to catch long-time leader and 35-1 shot Kiss Me For Luck by a length.
That was career victory No. 357 for Marquez, a 2021 Eclipse Award finalist for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey. El Ma’any is owned and trained by Mike Dini.
Marquez, who rode 36 winners here during the 2023-24 meet, missed more than a year after incurring numerous injuries in May of 2024 in a spill at Monmouth Park when his mount attempted to jump the inner rail. He returned to competition last August at Delaware Park and is showing signs of regaining his form of 2020 and 2021, when he rode a combined 210 winners. He is tied for eighth at the current meet with eight winners.
Leading jockey Samuel Marin rode two winners today. He won the fifth race on Trackster, a 4-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Vegso Racing Stable and trained by Joseph Orseno. Marin added the eighth with Final Drama, a 5-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Iceman Racing, LLC and trained by Kelly Breen.
Thoroughbred racing continues Wednesday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:20 p.m. Tampa Bay Downs is open every day 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.
