The Week in Review: After Pasco Stakes Fiasco, Changes Must Be Made

[Wandering Eyes]

The Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs doesn't exactly rank high up on anyone's list of races on the road to the GI Kentucky Derby. But the seven-furlong race for 3-year-olds does offer a purse of $125,000 and is a stepping stone to the $400,000 GIII Tampa Bay Derby, the track's signature race. Expectations for the Pasco are modest, but not so modest that anyone could have predicted that this year's race, scheduled to be run last Saturday, would not fill. Only two horses entered the race.

If the start of 2026 is any indication, the sport's problems with small fields for dirt stakes races are only growing worse. The Jan. 3 Jerome Stakes drew a field of four. Only five horses showed up for the Turfway Prevue Stakes, run later that same night. There were four stakes races for 3-year-olds on Jan. 3 and only the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn drew a decent field. They had eight runners, but Oaklawn, with its huge purses and loaded barn area, always seems to be the exception.

The point is this: Should the sport really be offering four stakes races for the same division of horses on the same day?

On Jan. 2, Gulfstream carded one of those early winter allowance races that often feature a number of 3-year-olds who seem to be loaded with potential. That race drew four horses.

Then there's California and its persistent problems. With Santa Anita having missed so many days due to inclement weather, recent cards, when they have been able to run, have been quite good and the field sizes have ballooned. But not in the dirt stakes races. Their weekend race for 3-year-old colts, the GII San Vicente Stakes, drew a field of five. Its counterpart, the Santa Ynez for 3-year-old fillies, had just four starters.

Back at Tampa, they did manage to fill two stakes races, but both, the Wayward Lass Stakes and the Gasparilla Stakes, drew fields of just six horses.

No one is saying this is an easy problem to fix, but something has to be done. With handle falling virtually every year and CAW players having driven so many everyday players out of the sport, the last thing this industry can afford to do is it to keep asking the horseplayer to bet on unbettable stakes races.

The root of the problem is obvious. The foal crop keeps dropping, yet tracks have stubbornly stuck to the type of stakes schedules that better fit in the eighties. No one is suggesting that it's time to drop any of the big-event, Grade I races that can still attract decent-sized fields and quality horses. But do we really need races like the Jerome? Yes, it's been around since 1866 and has been won by the likes of Kelso, Bold Ruler, Tom Fool and Coaltown. But those are horses out of a different era. We can easily do without the Jerome. The same can be said for dozens of stakes races that, year after year, come up as duds. It looks like it's also time for Tampa Bay Downs to call it a day when it comes to the Pasco.

Before anything can be accomplished, the racing industry is going to have to do something it has a very hard time doing–cooperating. And it must stop tripping all over one another when it comes to scheduling the same races on the same days for the same groups of stakes horses. That's not how they do it in Standardbred racing.

Every year in December, the heads of the racing departments from every major harness track in the U.S. and Canada get together in Deerfield Beach, Florida. They don't leave the room until they have all ended up on the same page. The result is a seamless stakes schedule for the entire sport where there are, basically, no conflicts. They, believe it or not, put their sport first and their own self-interests come in second.

“They get together and, over the course of two or three days, they put together the stakes calendars,” said Mike Tanner, the executive vice president/CEO of the United States Trotting Association. “They try to optimize opportunities and make sure they're not stepping on each other. This has been going on for longer than I have been in harness racing. It's an optimal way of doing things. In horse racing, it's not common to see everyone rowing in the same direction, but in this case, that's what they do. I go to watch, learn and listen. It's great sitting in the room and watching these  guys work.”

Pocono Downs Director of Racing and Racing Secretary Rick Kane is among those working each year to make sure all the pieces of the puzzle fit.

“When there are conflicts, it doesn't help either party or multiple parties,” Kane said. “We really try as best we can to make sure there are no conflicts whatsoever. Generally, every track has a certain area where they put certain stakes. There are a few conflicts, but not really. When it comes down to the particular gaits, ages, and sexes, we try very hard to make sure there is enough time between the races to make sure there are no conflicts. If it looks like there is going to be a conflict, one of the two parties will agree to move their race. I have done that many times.”

Obviously, the harness racing secretaries have it much easier than their counterparts in the Thoroughbred game. There are far fewer harness tracks and far fewer stakes races than there are at the Thoroughbred tracks, and a top trotter or pacer will race around 20 times a year. You're lucky to get five starts a year out of a stakes-caliber Thoroughbred. But these guys get it. They work together, something you just don't see in our sport.

Can we at least give the same sort of sit-down among racing department heads a try? It certainly couldn't hurt. What is happening now just isn't working.

RIP Leo O'Brien

One of the best things about covering horse racing is that you get to meet some super people. Leo O'Brien, who passed away last week at 85, makes my Top 5 when it comes to the nicest people I have ever met in the sport. He was perpetually in a good mood, always friendly and always understood that the remarkable Fourstardave belonged to more than just him and owner Richard Bomze. He was the people's horse, especially the people of Saratoga.

But even with all that he accomplished with Fourstardave, that was not the highlight of his training career. That came with Dave's little brother, Fourstars AllStar. O'Brien, always wanted to win a Classic race in his own country and thought he had the horse to do it in Fourstars Allstar in the 1991 running of the Irish 2000 Guineas. He knew his horse and put together what would now be considered an insane schedule. He ran him a week before the race in Ireland and scored a sharp victory in an allowance race at Belmont.

So, O'Brien, Fourstars Allstar and a young jockey named Mike Smith, hopped on a plane to Dublin and returned home with a game win in the prestigious race. To watch the race click here.

All these years later, O'Brien is still the only American-based trainer to win a European Classic.

“It was always a dream of mine to maybe one day return to the Curragh, where I rode and won my first race on a horse called Similar,” O'Brien told the Irish Field. “The whole idea was to bring a U.S.-based horse with an American jockey. That was the sport and the challenge of it.

“I began to think about the Irish 2000 Guineas at the end of October, after 'Allstar' was a very good second in the GIII Laurel Futurity, which had been run on the turf that year.

“He was a beautiful mover on the grass, a true daisy-cutter, very much a firm ground type with great natural speed. He was easy to settle and really, in terms of tactics, could be ridden from anywhere. We trained him all winter with the Guineas in mind and I was very confident.”

Oh, and I had more than a few Irish pounds on him at 9-1.

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