The Tampa Bay Downs racing community has a long history of rising to the occasion when one of its members is faced with life-changing circumstances.
That fact was vividly illustrated during the latter part of the 1992-93 meet, when jockey Jesse Garcia – now the assistant trainer for Michael Campbell – was confronted with a personal crisis that brought an outpouring of support from fellow jockeys, horsemen and horsewomen and the racing public at large.
Garcia’s son Sebastian was born in late 1992 with a hole in one of the chambers of his heart, necessitating open-heart surgery for his survival. Doctors repaired the defect, but complications arose and the infant was returned to the operating room.
Sebastian, only 4 ½ months old, died on the recovery table a day after undergoing 10 hours of surgery. “It was too traumatic for him to go through,” Garcia recalls.
As devastating as their son’s death was for Garcia and the boy’s mother, Garcia’s then-wife Germaine, they were strengthened throughout their ordeal by their friends at the racetrack. Jockey Emilio Gomez organized a benefit softball game and barbecue to help defray the couple’s medical expenses, and Deb Haehn, a columnist for the Daily Racing Form, and Gladys Olivares, the wife of former jockey Jose Olivares, raised public awareness of Sebastian’s plight.
Out of that tragedy was born an enduring testament to the desire of Tampa Bay Downs owners, trainers and backstretch workers to lift each other through life’s inevitable misfortunes: the annual “Hearts Reaching Out” benefit golf tournament, which will be held for the 33rd time Monday afternoon at Lansbrook Golf Club in Palm Harbor.
The tournament kicks off the track’s Festival Week, which reaches a crescendo on Saturday, March 8 with a card featuring five stakes races, including the Grade III, $400,000-guaranteed Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby for 3-year-olds.
Proceeds from “Hearts Reaching Out” benefit the Race Track Chaplaincy of America-Tampa Bay Downs Division, which provides for the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of the track’s backside workers.
“People come out to play golf and have fun, and it’s for a good cause,” says Garcia, who was the leading jockey at Tampa Bay Downs for the 1997-98 meet and rode 2,029 winners in his career. “Thirty-three years, wow. … how quick time goes by. I remember being so grateful that so many people reached out to us at that time. Unfortunately Sebastian didn’t survive, but his legacy goes on by being able to help people in racing through this event.”
The first “Hearts Reaching Out” event, held primarily to help Jesse and Germaine stay afloat financially while they fought to save Sebastian’s life, has grown into one of the Oldsmar oval’s most beloved off-track activities.
The RTCA-Tampa Bay Downs Division provides church services, continuing English-language classes, medical and dental care, healthy foods, rides to the laundry and counseling from Alex DeLima, now in his third season as Chaplain. The organization also provides such fun outings on non-racing days as trips to the Florida State Fair and The Florida Aquarium, as well as a fishing trip out of Clearwater scheduled for March 17.
It’s the “Hearts Reaching Out” golf tournament that draws the most public support. Dr. Bill Owens, the RTCA-Tampa Bay Downs Division President, reports Monday’s event is a complete sellout.
DeLima has a good idea why the tournament is so popular.
“Of course, it is an opportunity for us to raise funds we need for our work,” DeLima says. “But it is also a chance for the owners and trainers to express their gratitude to the people who work every day with the horses.
“It’s a way for all of us to link hands and continue to support everything the chaplaincy does.”
Two years after Sebastian passed, Jesse and Germaine had a daughter, Arianna, who gave them a granddaughter Nora, now 5 years old.
“The Lord had other plans for Sebastian. It was hard, but I had to stay strong and believe in myself and go on,” Garcia says. “When I handed him to the doctor for the second time, I said ‘Lord, it’s in your hands. If you think you should have him more than I should, then he is yours.’
“He continues to be in our hearts and our minds. You have to be OK with it.”
