A Tampa Bay Downs tradition is set to continue on Thursday when the staff of Papa Jim’s Kitchen serves about 300 Thanksgiving dinners to backstretch workers and racetrack employees from 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. (or when the food runs out, whichever comes first).
This year’s menu consists of heaping helpings of turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, corn, green beans, cornbread, a beverage and dessert.
“It’s our 13th year of serving Thanksgiving, and it’s always a pleasure,” said Papa Jim’s co-owner Terry “Mama” Tsirigotis, who got things started in 2012 with her late husband, “Papa Jim” Tsirigotis, who died four years ago. “It’s a lot of work, but seeing so many people happy brings us joy.
“Mr. Berube (track General Manager Peter Berube) and Margo (Flynn, Vice President of Marketing and Publicity) have been wonderful. They’ve never said ‘No’ to anything we’ve asked,” she said.
Terry and Papa Jim’s son Jim Tsirigotis, Jr., who is also a Thoroughbred trainer, has spent much of the last week preparing for the feast, pre-cooking 15 turkeys weighing between 24-27 pounds while tending to his horses and making other meal arrangements. He considers it a privilege to serve the scores of workers who contribute to putting on the show each racing day while carrying on the offering of love his parents began.
“The track kitchen is the heart of the racetrack. It’s where everybody gathers – trainers, agents, jockeys, grooms – to socialize, eat a little something and get their day going,” Jim, Jr., said.
“Thanksgiving is always a huge day. A lot of the people here are not able to be home. But they can come here and celebrate with their friends on the backside. Our job is to be sure these people are happy and they get their bellies full.
“That’s why we have the sign up: ‘There’s no better way to feel good than to eat good at Papa Jim’s.’ ”
Ken Nicholl, a blacksmith from the Chicago area who usually eats at Papa Jim’s twice a day, is among those backstretch workers counting down the hours to contentment. This will be his sixth year enjoying Thanksgiving with other horse folks.
“It’s great to see people doing something nice for other people,” said Nicholl. “The food is good, they give you plenty and the meals are affordable. The atmosphere is friendly, and (Terry) is like a mother to everyone.”
The past year has presented numerous challenges to the Tsirigotises. Terry, 76, was diagnosed last year with kidney failure and undergoes dialysis treatments three days a week. In April, doctors found bone marrow cancer in her skull, chest and back, leading to a twice-a-week regimen of chemotherapy treatments.
Then, earlier this month, she broke her foot. “It was very painful the first week. I didn’t take any pain pills because I’m on so much medication, and they didn’t know what the reaction might be,” she said.
Terry hopes to feel good enough to join the festivities Thursday. She missed last year’s Thanksgiving because of her kidney problems.
“Knowing my mother, she’ll be here,” Jim, Jr., said. “She told me Tuesday ‘Yeah, I gotta make the cornbread.’ ”
Terry knows there are many things over which she has no control – including the emotions she feels thinking about having so many grateful folks over for Thanksgiving.
“It’s hard, because I keep everything inside,” she said. “But when I come here, I forget my problems.”
Papa Jim himself, the patriarch, may have said it best several years ago. “We don’t like to see anybody go hungry. And when I see the smiles on the faces of people who come here, that to me is worth a million dollars.
“The way I look at it, God put me on this earth to do good all my life.”
Camacho stays red-hot. Samy Camacho rode four winners today, giving him nine for the first three days of the meet. Camacho, who also won a race Sunday at Gulfstream Park for trainer Michael Maker, won today’s second race on 4-year-old Florida-bred filly St. Joe Jet for owner Rick Arnold and trainer Kathleen Guciardo.
Camacho next won the sixth race on 4-year-old gelding DeSantis for owner Valls Thoroughbreds and trainer Michael Simone. DeSantis was claimed from the race for $5,000 by new owner-trainer Ricardo G. Ramirez. Camacho scored again in the eighth on 5-year-old mare Murumbi for owner-trainer Juan Arriagada.
The rider finished his second four-victory day of the 3-day-old meet in the ninth race on the turf, winning the 5-furlong allowance/optional claiming event on Rouki, a 3-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by Tropic Lightning Racing and Edward A. Seltzer and trained by Gerald Bennett.
Inaugural, Sandpiper Stakes draw 26 nominations apiece. Two $125,000, 6-furlong races for 2-year-olds kick off the Tampa Bay Downs stakes schedule on Saturday, Dec. 7, with each drawing 26 nominations.
Trainer Saffie A. Joseph, Jr., has nominated three horses for the 39th running of the Inaugural Stakes for 2-year-old males. His trio includes e Five Racing Thoroughbreds, LLC’s colt Grayscale, who broke his maiden on Nov. 16 by 4 ½ lengths sprinting six furlongs at Gulfstream Park in his career debut.
Joseph’s other nominees are Neoequos, who finished second in both the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association Florida Sire Dr. Fager and Affirmed Stakes at Gulfstream, and maiden Roar of the Beast.
A number of stakes winners and stakes-placed juveniles are nominated, including trainer Gerald Bennett’s colt Naughty Rascal, whose 3-for-4 record includes victories in the Proud Man Stakes on Aug. 10 and the Armed Forces Stakes on the turf on Nov. 2, both at Gulfstream Park.
Other notable Inaugural nominees include (but are not limited to) owner-trainer Mary Lightner’s Candycrumbs, who won the Hickory Tree Stakes on Aug. 3 at Colonial Downs; Epitaph, trainer Gary Contessa’s gelding who finished third in the Grade III Futurity Stakes on Oct. 4 at Belmont At The Big A; and Noble N Magical, a two-time stakes-placed colt from the barn of trainer Andy P. Williams.
Fillies are permitted to run in the Inaugural, and owner-trainer Patrick Biancone has nominated Unchained Elaine to both races. She won her last start, a 7-furlong allowance/optional claiming race on Nov. 17 at Gulfstream.
The 47th edition of the Sandpiper for 2-year-old fillies also has an impressive list of nominees, including trainer Carlos David’s two-time stakes winner Win N Your In. She is entered in Saturday’s FTBOA Florida Sire My Dear Girl Stakes, so her participation in the Sandpiper is uncertain.
Trainer Joseph has nominated four to the Sandpiper. The quartet includes Andrea, winner of the Hallandale Beach Stakes on Sept. 14 at Gulfstream; R Morning Brew, a stakes winner owned by Averill Racing also entered in the My Dear Girl Stakes; Rojo Rita, who won her career debut on Nov. 15 at Gulfstream by an eye-popping 16 ¼ lengths; and maiden winner Paradise City.
The nominations list also includes Liam in the Dust, trainer Rodolphe Brisset’s filly who finished second in the Grade III Pocahontas Stakes on Sept. 14 at Churchill Downs; trainer Brian Lynch’s Mrs Worldwide, who won the Juvenile Fillies Sprint Stakes on Nov. 16 at Gulfstream; and Contessa’s Another Cleeshay, fourth in the Grade I Frizette Stakes on Oct. 5 at Belmont At The Big A.
Around the oval. Tampa Bay Downs is closed Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, with racing resuming Friday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:45 p.m. Tampa Bay Downs will hew to a Wednesday-Friday-Saturday schedule before Sundays are added to the mix on Dec. 22.
A special Christmas Eve card will be conducted on Dec. 24. The track will be closed Christmas Day.
Registration for the popular “10 Days of Festivus Challenge” Online Handicapping Contest begins on Saturday. There is no charge to enter. The contest runs from Friday, Dec. 6 through Tuesday, Dec. 24.
The first-place Festivus Challenge prize is $1,000 and the second-place prize is $500. A full set of rules and all other details are available online at www.festivuschallenge.com
Tampa Bay Downs is open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas 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.
