Tampa Bay Downs: See the fields for 3 Saturday stakes

A trio of stakes races are featured on Saturday’s annual Skyway Festival day card at Tampa Bay Downs, with 3-year-olds of both sexes attempting to prove their mettle in a pair of $125,000, 7-furlong contests on the main track.

Ten races are scheduled, with post time for the first race at 12:32 p.m. EST.

The $125,000 Pasco Stakes, for 3-year-old males, is the sixth race on the card. Six horses are entered, with trainer Mark Casse’s one-two punch of Grade 3 stakes winner Champions Dream and Ontario-bred stakes winner Armstrong expected to be formidable.

Also dangerous is trainer Gerald Bennett’s gelding Handsome Playboy, who was second at Tampa Bay Downs on Dec. 3 in the Inaugural Stakes.

The $125,000 Gasparilla, for 3-year-old fillies, is slated as the ninth race and brings together eight horses. The field includes the 1-2 finishers in the Dec. 3 Sandpiper Stakes, trainer Michael Yates’s Dorth Vader and conditioner Robert G. Smith’s Awesome Pic.

Older fillies and mares get their moment in the spotlight in the seventh race, the $50,000, 1 1/16-mile Wayward Lass Stakes on the main track. Seven horses are entered, with trainer George Weaver’s 5-year-old mare Pass the Champagne and Bennett’s 5-year-old Tap Dance Fever both appearing capable of grabbing the top prize.