Grade II winner Further Ado primed for Esmaek Tampa Bay Derby
At 0h03, on March 7, 2026 • By Tampa Bay Downs
The biggest day of the 2025-26 Thoroughbred meet at Tampa Bay Downs on Saturday promises excitement galore, with the added bonus of the emergence of one or more Kentucky Derby candidates from the Grade III, $400,000 ESMARK Tampa Bay Derby.
The ESMARK Tampa Bay Derby for 3-year-olds is the centerpiece of a glittering Festival Day 46 card offering five stakes races, four of which are graded, worth a combined $1,075,000 in purse money. Officials plan to get the day’s action underway at noon. The top five finishers in the ESMARK Tampa Bay Derby earn qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby on May 2 on a 50-25-15-10-5 scale.
The mile-and-a-sixteenth race over the Oldsmar main track has produced two winners of the Run for the Roses: Street Sense, who won both races in 2007, and Super Saver, who finished third in the 2010 Tampa Bay Derby before his victory in the world’s most famous race at Churchill Downs.
The other stakes on Saturday’s card are the Grade II, $225,000 Hillsborough Stakes for fillies and mares 4-years-old-and-upward at a distance of a mile-and-an-eighth on the turf course; the Grade III, $200,000 Florida Oaks for 3-year-old fillies at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the grass; the Grade III, $125,000 Michelob Ultra Challenger Stakes for horses 4-and-upward at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the main track; and the $125,000 Columbia Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on the turf.
The 46th edition of the ESMARK Tampa Bay Derby features a bona fide standout in Further Ado, a colt owned by Spendthrift Farm and trained by Brad Cox. He has two victories from four starts, and both have been ultra-impressive: a 20-length maiden-breaking score on Oct. 10 at Keeneland, followed seven weeks later by a triumph in the Grade II Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs.
Both victories came at the mile-and-a-sixteenth distance. What’s more, Further Ado worked exceptionally well for his 3-year-old debut, his most recent move a 5-furlong breeze Saturday in 49 2/5 seconds Saturday at Payson Park Training Center in Indiantown.
