OLDSMAR - Since her horses were sidelined for seven racing days in December, Tampa Bay Downs trainer Kathleen O’Connell has been making up for lost time.

    O’Connell sent out four winners on Jan. 2, tying a track record she established in 2003. It is shared by Gerald Bennett (three times), Jamie Ness (twice) and Chad Brown. That performance was instrumental in O’Connell earning the Martin’s Italian Trainer of the Month Award.

    It also kindled hopes for a third consecutive Oldsmar training crown and fifth overall for O’Connell, who first won the title in 1998-99 and captured it again in 2009-10, tying with Ness. O’Connell has nine victories, trailing Juan Carlos Avila (18), Juan Arriagada (13) and Bennett (12).

    More on O’Connell in a moment. With $817,003 funneled into today’s late Pick 5 carryover pool, the potential for a huge payoff seemed likely, and victories in the first two legs by 17-1 and 20-1 shots seemed to assure it. At the end of the card, the winning 4-11-10-6-2 combination paid $21,765 apiece to 35 lucky ticket holders.

\    The Ultimate 6 was also hit, with one bettor correctly selecting the winners of the final six races – the old 8-4-11-10-6-2 combination – to the tune of $33,093.

    Back to O’Connell, one of the track’s most popular trainers due as much to her humility as her winning ways. “Four in a day doesn’t happen too often,” she said Wednesday from Gulfstream Park, where she is overseeing her south Florida string this week. “We felt they were all in good spots and drew good post positions, but you still need to get a good trip to win.
“I’m very happy for everyone in our crew and the owners – it was very hard for them to watch races their horses were supposed to run in.”

    Her record-tying afternoon began when the 5-year-old mare Fullmoonmagic won the first race for owner Joseph Capriglione, with Sonny Leon in the saddle. O’Connell and Leon teamed to win the sixth race with Stonehedge-bred and owned 3-year-old filly Justamomentplease, who was claimed from the race for $16,000 by trainer Ralph N. Baez.

    O’Connell added the eighth race with DiBello Racing homebred 6-year-old mare Princess Britni, ridden by Jose Ferrer, and the ninth on the turf with Katies a Lady, a 7-year-old mare owned by Double D Stable and ridden by Ademar Santos.

    O’Connell’s barn was one of two sidelined last month by a quarantine imposed after a horse was confirmed to have the neurological form of EHV-1 (Equine Herpesvirus Type 1), which is highly contagious. No other horse on the grounds tested positive or displayed any signs of having the virus.

    Tampa Bay Downs established numerous safety measures to keep the virus from spreading, including requiring workers at both barns to wear protective footwear and clothing and adopting a temporary training schedule for the affected barns – after the rest of the track’s horse population had already been out and galloped or breezed.

    “It was a very tough thing to go through, but everyone on our team pulled together and did a great job. It was a total group effort,” O’Connell said. “Horses are creatures of habit who want structure and routine, and we had to break that up and go to a different routine that was hard on everybody, including the horses. I am a firm believer in schooling a horse at the starting gate and we didn’t have gate-schooling for 21 days, so everything needed to be revamped and we did the best that we could.”

    On Sundays during the quarantine, when there was no racing, the track maintenance department dragged the racetrack after horses from other barns had worked to provide O’Connell’s horses a smooth surface. O’Connell cited that as one example of track officials working closely with her to ensure she could keep her horses as race-ready as possible.

    “I thought they did a great job of accommodating our needs wherever possible,” she said. “Everybody worked together and tried to do things in a safe manner while helping us with what we needed to get back into action.”

    That is when O’Connell and her charges are at their best. Since joining the training ranks in 1981, she has sent out 2,606 career winners, briefly holding the No. 1 spot all-time among North American female trainers in 2023 before being passed by Linda Rice. O’Connell’s national profile skyrocketed in 2015 as the trainer of exciting 3-year-old filly Lady Shipman, who finished second by a neck to Mongolian Saturday in the TwinSpires Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Keeneland after winning six stakes and setting two course records.

    O’Connell has also trained the likes of 2011 Gr. II Tampa Bay Derby winner Watch Me Go, her lone Kentucky Derby starter; Blazing Sword, a winner of three graded stakes from 1997-2000; 2019 Gr. III Sam F. Davis Stakes winner Well Defined; Stormy Embrace, winner of back-to-back runnings of the Gr. II Princess Rooney Stakes in 2018-19; and Ivanavinalot, who won the Gr. II Bonnie Miss Stakes in 2003 and is the dam of Hall of Fame member Songbird.

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