While not as famous as its counterpart, Gulfstream Park, Tampa Bay Downs still offers great thoroughbred racing each year from December until May. Situated in Oldsmar, Florida, a hallmark of Tampa Bay Downs are huge fields. It is not uncommon to see ten horses or more in each race. The track has been lauded by the Horseplayer’s Association of America as the second best track for bettors behind Keeneland. This is because the large fields make races very difficult to handicap and often produce longshot winners.

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Tampa Bay Downs is actually older than Gulfstream Park, having opened in 1928. In 1998 the track added a turf course to increase its attractiveness. Throughout the years, Tampa Bay Downs has been known by a variety of names—Tampa Downs, Florida Downs, and Sunshine Park to name a few. The current name was adopted in 1986.

The stakes schedule at Tampa Bay Downs is light compared to other tracks in Florida, but the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby is worth watching as showcase of the nation’s best three-year-old horses as they try to win their way into the Kentucky Derby.

One of the biggest success stories in the Tampa Bay Derby in recent years is Street Sense, trained by Carl Nafzger. Nafzger opted to bring the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner to Tampa as a prep for the Kentucky Derby. Street Sense ultimately became the first colt in history to win both the Juvenile and the Derby. In the process, Street Sense and Nafzger gave the Tampa Bay Derby a boost in credibility as a competitive race. Todd Pletcher is the only trainer to win the race twice—Limehouse in 2004 and Verrazano in 2012. Pletcher’s Super Saver ran third in the 2010 running of the Tampa Bay Derby and followed this effort with a second-place finish in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby. Super Saver became the second horse to exit the Tampa Bay Derby and win the roses in Kentucky.

Jockeys to watch at Tampa Bay Downs are Daniel Centeno and Leandro Goncalves. Centeno won the jockey title four straight years from the 2006-2009 and also holds the record for most wins during a single meet with 144.

Trainers Jamie Ness, Kathleen O’Connell, and Gerald Bennett have all found themselves at the top of the standings in recent years. Ness won an amazing 79 races during the 2011 meet.

Don’t miss the exciting action of Tampa Bay Downs and the Tampa Bay Derby by creating an account now at Twin Spires or another online racebook! You will find all of the handicapping tools and betting options you need to be a winner!

Graded stakes run at Tampa Bay Downs:

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Tampa Bay Downs as a Handicapping Market

Tampa Bay Downs’s winter meet occupies a distinctive niche in the Florida racing calendar, offering a complementary programme to Gulfstream’s higher-profile events at a track that attracts a mix of local Florida-based horses and northern shippers seeking winter racing in a warmer climate. The track’s one-mile oval and its generally reliable surface create consistent form patterns that reward systematic study, and the competitive fields during the heart of the winter meet provide genuine handicapping challenges rather than the walk-over situations that sometimes occur at smaller regional tracks.

The claiming and allowance ranks at Tampa Bay Downs are particularly interesting for bettors who enjoy the challenge of identifying undervalued horses in less prestigious races. The horses competing at Tampa are often more difficult to assess than those at major tracks — with less media coverage, less published analysis, and more information asymmetry between well-prepared bettors and the casual public — creating more frequent pricing inefficiencies that thorough preparation can exploit. For more on Florida racing venues, our articles on horse racing tracks in Florida and horse racing and poker at Tampa Bay Downs cover the track in detail. And our guide to Florida, New York, Kentucky horse racing places Tampa within Florida’s broader racing ecosystem.