Tampa Bay Downs: Lynch, Bennett come strong to Pasco

After watching Naughty Rascal breeze four furlongs in 49.2 seconds at Tampa Bay Downs on Sunday, trainer Gerald Bennett believes the 3-year-old colt is coming up to Saturday’s $150,000, seven-furlong Pasco Stakes as well as can be hoped for.

“It was just a maintenance breeze, but Brian (Pedroza, the exercise rider) said he had tons of horse,” Bennett said. “(Naughty Rascal) got mad Brian didn’t let him gallop out stronger.”

Bennett has high hopes Naughty Rascal, who is 3-for-5 with two stakes victories at Gulfstream Park, will improve on his second-place finish in the 6-furlong Inaugural Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs on Dec. 7 to Donut God, who set a stakes record of 1:09.13 in the process.

Trainer Brian Lynch has opted to point Donut God to the Swale Stakes on Feb. 1 at Gulfstream Park for his next start, but he’s sending another foe for Naughty Rascal to contend with in Owen Almighty, a stakes-winning colt whose last race resulted in a second-place finish to Jonathan's Way in the Grade 3, 1-mile Iroquois Stakes on Sept. 14 at Churchill Downs. Both Owen Almighty and Donut God are owned by Flying Dutchmen Breeding and Racing.

Both Lynch and Bennett view the Pasco as a logical stepping stone to the Sam F. Davis Stakes (G3) at Tampa Bay on Feb. 8, a 1 1/16-mile contest that is also a points race for the road to the Kentucky Derby.

“Donut God is still doing great, but we felt like he could do with a little more time. And Owen Almighty needs to run, and I think he could be better suited to the Sam F. Davis and the Tampa Bay Derby (G3) if he runs good in the Pasco,” said Lynch, who described Owen Almighty’s four-furlong breeze of 47.60 seconds from the Palm Meadows starting gate “a refresher."

“We just wanted to knock the cobwebs off and make sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed,” Lynch said. He added that Owen Almighty is fully recovered from an illness he compared to irritable bowel syndrome that led him to give the colt time off after the Iroquois rather than push him to make the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in November.

Bennett, who won eight consecutive Tampa Bay Downs training titles before being dethroned last season by Kathleen O’Connell, thinks Naughty Rascal is every bit as good as his record suggests. A $39,000 Ocala Breeders’ Sales March 2024 2-year-old purchase, he is owned by Mr Pug and J.P.G. 2.

“He’s already won going two turns (in the Armed Forces Stakes on the turf at Gulfstream on Nov. 2), and in the race he lost there (the Sept. 21 Aventura Stakes, finishing third), he was bumped hard at the break and had his feet knocked out from under him,” Bennett said. “He’s been breezing every week and is ready to go.”