Flores accomplishes rare jockey-trainer feat with Calypso Key

The start of the holiday weekend provided another day of celebration for Treasure Beach and Handsome Mike, who continued their string of recent successes at both Florida tracks.

At Tampa Bay Downs, David Flores added another milestone to his long and storied career with a victory aboard the Treasure Beach mare Calypso Key in a one-mile race on the grass. Flores had retired from racing in 2017 (temporarily, it appears) after riding 3,608 winners and piling up more than $150 million in purse money. Now stationed at Classic Mile, the 52-year-old native of Mexico has been training Calypso Key for his owners and breeders, Ocala’s Firefly Farm Racing, and added the riding chores aboard the 5-year-old mare after she hadn’t shown much in three tries at Tampa with other jockeys.

Aboard for the first time on April 1, Flores finished a sharp second with Calypso Key on the grass, missing the top prize by less than a length. On April 24, she didn’t handle a sloppy main track, but she was able to turn it all around when back on the turf yesterday. Flores shot her toward the lead from the outside at the break, and settled her into a comfortable third on the rail down the backstretch. While the rest of the challengers fanned wide on the turn, he slipped Calypso Key through on the rail and she did the rest, coasting home by three-quarters of a length and affording Flores one of the rarest gifts in racing, a jockey/trainer victory.

Calypso Key became winner No. 13 for Treasure Beach this season, paying $14.80 and earning a check for $6,670.

At Gulfstream, Sir Seamus went wire-to-wire at a mile and one-sixteenth on the grass to register his second victory in his last three starts. Emisael Jaramillo handled the 4-year-old Handsome Mike gelding beautifully, and it resulted in a winner’s check for $11,700 and another breeders’ award for Joe and Helen Barbazon.

Sir Seamus is now 3-1-0 in 11 starts with earnings of $60,740 and is winner No. 20 this season for Handsome Mike, who has risen into 10th place on the Florida general sire list with earnings of $404,673.