Tampa Bay Downs will have a mandatory full jackpot payout on the Ultimate 6 wager on Tuesday’s Christmas Eve card, track officials announced today.
The Ultimate 6 is a 20-cent bet in which bettors select the winners of the day’s final six races. Normally, there is a full jackpot payout only when there is one winning ticket. If there is more than one winner, 75 percent of the amount wagered carries over into the next day’s Ultimate 6 pool and 25 percent is split among those bettors selecting the most winners.
With the mandatory payout on Tuesday, everyone correctly selecting the winners of the fourth through ninth races will share in the jackpot. If no bettor picks all six winners, those picking five of six (or four of six, if no one picks five) will split the full jackpot.
The Ultimate 6 jackpot carryover rose to $34,730.35 today, with Saturday’s and Sunday’s action potentially growing it much larger before Tuesday’s action. Five out of six correct today paid $634.36.
Post time for the first race Tuesday is 12:10 p.m.
O’Connell wins two. Kathleen O’Connell, last season’s leading Oldsmar trainer, sent out two winners today to tie Jon Arnett atop the current standings with seven victories apiece.
O’Connell won the second race for 2-year-old maiden fillies with Rip Riding Away, a Florida-bred owned by James Fugate and Paul Higgins and ridden by Hector Rafael Diaz, Jr. The conditioner added the third race with King Miano, a 4-year-old Florida-bred gelding owned by DiBello Racing LLC and ridden by Jose Ferrer.
In today’s first race, a mile-and-an-eighth maiden special weight contest on the turf for horses 3-years-old-and-upward, Factor Analysis drew off in the stretch to post a 4 ¾-length victory from Caller. The winning 3-year-old colt, a son of 2019 Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Vino Rosso (who finished third in the 2018 Grade III Sam F. Davis Stakes and fourth in that year’s Grade II Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby), is owned by Klaravich Stables and trained by Chad Brown.
Antonio Gallardo rode Factor Analysis, who completed the 9-furlong distance in 1:50.60 while winning for the first time in seven starts.
Pujol, a 49-1 shot in the race, hit the rail the first time past the wire, unseating jockey Alexis Batista. The inside turf rail, which is constructed of PVC plastic, is designed to protect jockeys and horses, and Pujol was able to complete the race riderless after “bouncing” off the barrier.
Batista had a sore left arm but was able to walk back to the jockeys’ room under his own power. Pujol was his only scheduled mount today.
Saturday feature looks wide-open. Saturday’s 10-race card begins at 12:10 p.m. The feature is the sixth race, a 1-mile turf affair for fillies and mares 3-and-upward which has drawn an overflow field of 14 (10 are permitted to start). The morning-line favorite at 5-2 is Fleetingly, who will be making her first start stateside after notching a second and a third in three races in Ireland. Antonio Gallardo will be the jockey.
Co-second choices at 3-1 are trainer Mike Dini’s 3-year-old filly Enchant and trainer James Toner’s 4-year-old filly African Waters, who drew the No. 11 post and would need a scratch to get into the race. Samuel Marin is named to ride Enchant and Hector Rafael Diaz, Jr., is named on African Waters.
Around the oval. Leading jockey Samuel Marin rode two winners today, both on the turf, giving him 10 victories over the last four racing days. He won the fifth race on Cherbourg, a 4-year-old filly owned by Lambholm Stable and trained by Roy Lerman. Marin added the ninth aboard Red Wind, a 6-year-old mare owned by AR Racing, LLC and trained by Michael Simone.
Following Saturday’s action, Tampa Bay Downs will conduct its first Sunday card of the meet, with the nine-race program beginning at 12:40 p.m. After the special Christmas Eve card on Tuesday, the Oldsmar oval will be closed Wednesday for Christmas.
The track will then jump into its traditional 4-days-a-week schedule (Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays) beginning next Friday, Dec. 27.
Also next Friday, the track will hold its annual Calendar Giveaway, with the first 5,000 patrons receiving a commemorative 2025 calendar free of charge. With its spectacular photography and timely reminders of upcoming events, this is always one of the track’s most popular promotions, and fans are encouraged to get theirs before they run out.
With the exception of Christmas and Easter Sunday, April 20, 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.