Tampa Bay Downs trainer Michael Simone admits he became emotional when he won the first leg of the Fillies and Mares Division of the Tampa Turf Test starter handicap series with his (then)-6-year-old mare Red Wind, ridden by Samuel Marin, on Dec. 28.
“It wasn’t the biggest purse that I’ve ever won, but it was probably the biggest win I’ve ever had as a trainer,” said Simone, the Mother’s Restaurant Trainer of the Month. “You have to nominate your horse to run and it’s a handicap race (in which the weights are assigned by the Racing Secretary), and it has a stakes-race atmosphere.
“So yes, it was an important race for me. Believe it or not, I actually teared up a little when she won.”
Red Wind finished fourth and third in subsequent legs of the Tampa Turf Test for Simone and owners AR Racing and William Quirk, and was fifth in today’s ninth race on the turf.
A quick pause here to announce there will be a carryover pool of $51,805.82 into Saturday’s late 50-cent Pick 5 wager, as no bettor hit today’s 3-4-9-8-7 combination. The late Pick 5 will begin with the fifth race.
Simone almost won both legs of the Tampa Turf Test on Dec. 28, with his 5-year-old gelding Eddie the Great finishing second at odds of 43-1 in the Males Division to Late Call. With the fourth and final legs of the Tampa Turf Test highlighting Saturday’s nine-race card, Simone is taking another shot in the 1 3/8-mile seventh race with Policy Option, an 8-year-old gelding owned by Valls Thoroughbreds. Marin will ride.
Simone, who is 10th in the Tampa Bay Downs standings with 11 victories, has been one of the most active claiming trainers at the track this season, picking up 16 horses through the claims box at last count and having 11 claimed. Two of those departed his shedrow Wednesday, reducing his stable by more than 10 percent, from 19 to 17.
That did not cause the 39-year-old Queens, N.Y., product remorse, although he admits he sometimes gets more attached to certain horses than he thinks he should. Even though 5-year-old gelding Makizan had finished second in his first start after Simone claimed him for $5,000 for owner Wayne LaMarche, Simone kept him at the $5,000 level for Wednesday’s third race, with Markizan winning the 6 ½-furlong race easily under Gabriel Maldonado.
Two trainers submitted bids for Markizan, with Joel Campbell winning the “shake” and taking possession.
“I liked (Markizan) a lot, and I didn’t want to lose him,” Simone said. “But that’s how the claiming game is. He looked like a horse that was on the improve when I claimed him and his legs were pretty clean. But one thing I’ve learned is that if you’re not afraid of your horse getting claimed, then they’re probably not in the right race.”
Simone’s other horse to be claimed Wednesday, 5-year-old gelding Hari, seemed less likely to depart his barn. Acquired by the conditioner from his previous start, a second-place finish on March 2, for $6,250 in a three-way “shake,” Hari was stepping up to the $10,000 claiming level. Hari ran a so-so fifth in Wednesday’s mile-and-40-yard sixth race and was claimed for the five-figure price by owner-trainer M. Anthony Ferraro.
Hari is a New York-bred, leading Simone to surmise he might be a valuable asset to Ferraro’s barn at his summer base at Finger Lakes in the Empire State.
“When I put him in for 10K, I knew there was a chance he might go (get claimed) because there were two other trainers on him for $6,250,” Simone said. “We (himself and owner Paterpop Racing’s Peter Castellanos) liked his recent form and the fact he was on the upswing, but by moving him up in class we knew there was a chance somebody would jump up and (Castellanos) could make a few dollars.
“Sometimes a horse can have more potential than you originally thought, but you have to run them where they can win. My owners put up good money and a lot of them are businessmen who look at their return on investment. So they’re not always as sentimental about the horses, because they don’t work with them.
“For myself and my crew, it can be a little more difficult,” Simone said. “But the name of the game is to win races. So we definitely try to run them where they can be competitive. If we lose them (via a claim), we lose them.”
Winning races is a tough task at Tampa Bay Downs, where such year-in, year-out mainstays as Kathleen O’Connell, Gerald Bennett, Juan Arriagada and Mike Dini keep cranking out their share of victories and south Florida raiders Chad Brown, Claude “Shug” McGaughey, III, Saffie A. Joseph, Jr., Bill Mott and Christophe Clement are quick to pounce when the conditions look right.
“You get people who come here from all over, and it’s usually the bigger outfits at smaller tracks around the country who race here,” Simone noted. “Those guys are used to winning, and they’ll drop a horse (in claiming price) to win. If you’re a claiming trainer you lose horses and you claim horses.
“It’s a great place to winter, especially for what I do, and you meet people from everywhere – even outside the country – and you make connections from all over the place. Plus, it’s a place that has a lot of eyes on it across the country and it’s always competitive. It’s a fun meet and I love it, and I want to continue to come here.”
Simone, who plans to compete at Delaware Park and Monmouth after the current Oldsmar meet, tied for 10th in last season’s standings with 15 winners. It was his first season back since 2007-08, when he also won 15.
He came up in the game the “hard way” – learning from his father Victor Simone, who died at 68 in 2012 (Michael’s mother Phyllis had died four years earlier). The elder Simone was probably best known as the trainer of Brushing Up, who won the Grade III Grey Lag Handicap at Aqueduct in 1998 and the Grade III Stymie Handicap at the Big A the following year.
“Of course, a lot of men want to follow in the footsteps of their dad. When I was younger, I didn’t know the business as well and I would give him a lot of grief about some things he did,” Simone said. “Now that I’ve witnessed it myself, I realize it’s not easy to win some of the races he did in New York, and I have a lot more respect for what he accomplished.
“I wasn’t the best at claiming when I first started, but you learn a lot from your mistakes. There are no right or wrong answers sometimes, and I observe other trainers to pick things up. The biggest thing is making sure the horses get everything they need – the supplements and the vitamins, the feed and the care they need to get them healthy and feeling good.
“There is always luck that comes into it, but most of the time if you do those simple steps, you’ll be successful,” Simone said.
The conditioner is thankful for the support provided by his owners – AR Racing and William Quirk, Valls Thoroughbreds, Paterpop Racing, Robert Deckert, Jr., John Fanelli and Longball Stables, and Roger Sterling, as well as a few others – and his barn crew of three grooms, three hotwalkers and an exercise rider.
As he learned years ago, there are a whole bunch of people at the racetrack you can learn stuff from.
Around the oval. Samuel Marin continued to pull away from defending champion Samy Camacho in his bid to win his first Oldsmar riding title. Marin, who leads Camacho by an 84-70 margin, posted three victories today. He won the second race on Golden Juan, a 6-year-old gelding owned by Hector R. Gonzalez and trained by Juan Carlos Avila.
Golden Juan set a track record of 1:38.14 in the mile-and-40-yard main-track contest, bettering the 1:38.28 clocking turned in by 4-year-old colt Copperlite on Feb. 1.
Marin next won the third race on the turf aboard No Telling, a 3-year-old Florida-bred colt owned by Windylea Farm and trained by Kathleen O’Connell. No Telling was claimed from the race for $16,000 by trainer Alejandro Olais Mendieta for new owner Pedro Brito Brito.
Marin’s third victory came in the fifth race on the turf with Far Above, a 5-year-old mare owned and trained by Arnoud Dobber.
Trainer Mike Dini sent out two winners back-to-back. He won the sixth race with Dyna Soar, a 3-year-old filly owned by Ballybrit Stable and ridden by Daniel Centeno. Dini added the seventh on the turf with Notable Exchange, a 3-year-old Florida-bred filly he also owns. Jesus Castanon was the jockey.
Thoroughbred racing continues Saturday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:28 p.m. Tampa Bay Downs races Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and is open every day except April 20, Easter, 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.
John Hancock is Louisiana Derby favorite. A pair of “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points races highlight a bountiful simulcast schedule Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs.
John Hancock, the 3-year-old colt who won the Sam F. Davis Stakes on Feb. 8 at Tampa Bay Downs in an exciting stretch duel against Grade III Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby winner Owen Almighty, is the 7-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s Grade II, $1-million Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
The race will be contested at a distance of a mile-and-three-sixteenths.
Owned By WinStar Farm and CHC, Inc., and trained by Brad Cox, John Hancock is 2-for-2, with both victories at Tampa Bay Downs. Flavien Prat will be aboard from the No. 1 post in the 10-horse field.
The race includes trainer Todd Pletcher’s colt Vassimo, who broke his maiden on Jan. 17 at Tampa Bay Downs and then finished fourth in the Grade II Fasig-Tipton Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 15 at Fair Grounds. Irad Ortiz, Jr., will ride Vassimo.
The Louisiana Derby, which is the 12th and final race on Saturday’s Fair Grounds care, is scheduled for about 6:42 Eastern Time and will be simulcast with the entire Fair Grounds card.
The third-place finisher in the Sam F. Davis Stakes, Poster, is the 3-1 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s Grade III, $777,000 Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park. A field of 12 3-year-olds is expected. Poster, a homebred racing for Godolphin, LLC and trained by Eoin Harty, will break from the No. 9 post under John Velazquez.
The Jeff Ruby Steaks is the 12th race from Turfway, with a probable post time of 6:25 p.m.
Little Vic headed to Dubai. After breezing a half-mile here Thursday in 50 3/5 seconds, 6-year-old horse Little Vic is in Miami awaiting a Saturday night flight to Dubai, where he is expected to compete on Saturday, April 5 in the Group 2, $1-million Godolphin Mile Sponsored by Emaar.
Little Vic, who is owned by the Victoria’s Ranch outfit of former major league baseball slugger Victor Martinez and trained by Juan Carlos Avila, won his most recent start, the Grade III Fred W. Hooper Stakes presented by Ketel One Vodka on Jan. 25 at Gulfstream Park. He is 8-for-26 lifetime with career earnings of $566,010.
He has raced three times at Tampa Bay Downs, his lone victory here coming on March 23 of 2024 in a 6-furlong allowance/optional claiming event.
Avila said he and Martinez plan to fly to the United Arab Emirates a week before the race.
Super Chow, a 5-year-old who won the Inaugural Stakes in December of 2022 in his only start at Tampa Bay Downs, is expected to race in Dubai in the Group 1, $2-million Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Nakheel at 1,200 meters (about 6 furlongs). Super Chow is owned by Lea Farms and trained by Jorge Delgado.
Super Chow won the Gulfstream Park Sprint Stakes on Feb. 22 in his most recent start.
The 5-year-old South African-bred gelding Isivunguvungu, who finished third here on Feb. 22 in the Turf Dash Stakes, is an expected starter in the Group 1, $1.5-million Al Quoz Sprint Sponsored by Azizi Developments. He is owned by Hollywood Racing and trained by H. Graham Motion.
The centerpiece of Dubai World Cup Day is the Group 1, $12-million Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline, in which 4-year-old international superstar Forever Young of Japan is expected to try to cement his reputation as one of the top two or three horses in training in the world.
For that kind of money, you know he will be challenged.
