Fans attending today’s action were greeted by glorious weather, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s. The forecast through the rest of 2025 is for more of the same, a blessing to the Tampa Bay Downs equine population, the folks who care for the horses and the Oldsmar oval’s loyal fans.
Racing resumes Wednesday with a nine-race Christmas Eve card beginning at 12:35 p.m. Track officials have announced there will be a forced payout on the 20-cent Ultimate 6 wager, which will begin with the fourth race. The Ultimate 6 requires bettors to select the winners of the last six races on the card.
Following today’s card, the Ultimate 6 jackpot will begin at $29,100.55.
Normally, the entire Ultimate 6 jackpot is paid out only when a single bettor correctly picks all six winners. If more than one bettor picks all six winners Wednesday, they will equally divide the full jackpot.
And since it is a forced payout, the entire pool will be paid out to all bettors selecting five winners if no one has all six on their ticket (or bettors selecting four winners if no one has five, a highly unlikely possibility given the amount of wagering expected).
The Ultimate 6 has yet to be hit this season. On days when it is not hit, 75 percent of that day’s Ultimate 6 wagering is split among the winners, with the remaining 25 percent carrying over into the jackpot pool.
Wednesday’s co-feature race is the seventh, a $56,500 conditional allowance/optional claiming race on the turf for horses 3-years-old-and-upward. The morning-line favorite at 3-1 in the field of 10 is trainer H. Graham Motion’s 4-year-old gelding Tok Tok, a stakes winner who finished sixth in the 2023 Prevagen Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita.
Wednesday’s other co-feature is the first race, a $56,500 allowance/optional claiming race for fillies and mares 3-years-old-and-upward. A field of six will face the starter.
Tampa Bay Downs will be closed in its entirety on Thursday, Christmas Day, then return to action Friday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:35 p.m.
Other than Christmas, 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 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 to be 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.
Tampa Bay Downs has tweaked its 2025-26 racing calendar, while maintaining a 90-day schedule.
Sunday racing, originally scheduled to begin this week, will get underway Jan. 4. The “lost” dates (Dec. 21 and 28) will be made up on Thursday, Feb. 5 and Thursday, Feb. 12.
Officials and staff of Tampa Bay Downs invite Thoroughbred lovers and newcomers alike to share in the excitement of the Oldsmar oval’s meet-long centennial celebration, commemorating the track’s opening on Feb. 18, 1926.
Around the oval. Spirited Boss, a 3-year-old Florida-bred filly making her first start since a third-place finish on June 8 in the Soaring Softly Stakes at Saratoga, staged a powerful stretch rally to win today’s featured seventh race, a $56,500 allowance/optional claiming event on the turf for fillies and mares 3-years-old-and-upward. Tour Queen finished second, a length-and-a-half back, followed by Any Port.
The winner’s time for the mile-and-a-sixteenth distance on the firm turf course was 1:42.30.
Spirited Boss won the Sanibel Island Stakes on March 29 at Gulfstream Park. Ridden today by Samuel Marin, she is owned by her breeder, Tag Stables, and trained by Jose Francisco D’Angelo.
Sonny Leon posted back-to-back winners today. He won the fifth race on the turf on Post Command, a 4-year-old gelding owned by Prancing Horse Farm and trained by Darien Rodriguez. Leon added the sixth race aboard Melody Win, a 4-year-old gelding owned by GOP Racing Stable and trained by Gerard Ochoa.
