Tampa Bay Downs Horse Racing Odds

The Tampa Bay Downs season tends to run along similar lines to the US racing calendar and that means starting on 1 July and ending on 30 June, although the seasonal meeting is narrowed down to the months between November and May, with 90 days in total for all the meetings that take place.

We will publish all the latest Tampa racecards when the meetings take place and you can also enjoy US race cards for every horse racing event that occurs in the United States of America, with customers keen to check out US horse racing betting tips and place online wagers.

Enjoy Tampa Bay Downs Festival Day

There’s no question as to what the biggest racing day of the year is at Tampa, with crowds gathering for Tampa Bay Downs Festival Day where there is around $1 million in prize money that is distributed to a sparkling card and it’s a meeting which attracts horses from all over the United States of America.

The Festival Day tends to take place in early March, with the Grade II Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby the highlight race and there’s around $400,000 in prize money for this race alone. You will generally find three-year-olds competing in this race who could potentially kick on to race in the Triple Crown events such as the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes.

Other showcase events include the Grade II, $225,000 Hillsborough Stakes and the Grade III, $200,000 Florida Oaks. These are both run on the turf and attract several high-profile entries, while crowds also enjoy the Grade III, $100,000 Challenger Stakes and the $75,000 Columbia Stakes.

There are several other meetings that take place at Tampa Bay Downs, with Florida Cup Day seeing top Florida-bred horses compete for over $750,000 in prize money during the course of the day. There are six races that are each worth $110,000 and the distances are varied as the runners go on either a dirt or a turf track.

Enjoy Kentucky Derby Day at Tampa Bay Downs

While the Kentucky Derby takes place at Churchill Downs, it doesn’t stop Tampa Bay from having a meeting on the same day and that means you can bet on the card at the latter while also watching the Race for the Roses on a big screen. It’s a brilliant way to bet online considering there are so many races taking place from simultaneous tracks.

At the Oldsmar Oval, there is a special 12-race card followed by a simulcast of the Kentucky Derby and there are betting opportunities for the latter, with Tampa also having a Summer Festival of Racing later in the year and this is a two-day annual event which starts with the final day of the old season and continues with the first day of a new one.

The History of Tampa Bay Downs

There tends to be race meetings every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the season that runs between November and June, with Tampa Bay Downs the only horse racing track that is on Florida’s west coast and the situation changed for this course in 2007 when Carl Nafzger ran champion two-year-old Street Sense in the Tampa Bay Derby.

The same horse would go on to win the Kentucky Derby and really put Tampa on the map in the world of US horse racing, with the track originally opening up as a West Coast Jockey Club in 1926 and this continued until it was used by the Army in 1943.

Interestingly, the race course wasn’t known as Tampa Bay Downs until 1980, with the track having been known as Florida Downs and Turf Club from 1965, with the venue having also been called the Sunshine Club.

Between 1983-2003, Tampa actually hosted Arabian races in addition to US thoroughbred races and there was only a dirt track for race meetings, although a grass track was then laid down as the course set out to diversify their options.