The Minaret Stakes

$50,000 Minaret Stakes

Fastest Time: 1:09.63 SPANISH CONCERT (2017)

Slowest Time: 1:12.3 SLEW KNEW (1994)

Longest Priced Winner: $72.00 PYXEN (1996)

Shortest Priced Winner: $ 3.60 IT’S ME MOM (2011)

Closest Winning Margin: NOSE WHATS IT GONNA BE LITTLE WON STORMY PUBLISHER

(1998) (2000) (2011)

Largest Winning Margin: 8 1/4 Lengths IT’S ME MOM (2011)

Shortest Priced Loser: $ .40 CARAMEL SWIRL (2023)

Track Condition: Fast Wet Fast Good

All except 2012 2021

Richest Purse: $65,000 2008

Other Notes: Jockey Daniel Centeno’s victory aboard Drifaros was his fourth in the Minaret, breaking a tie with William Henry for the most in the race. The 2022 winner Drop a Hint, who finished second two months earlier in the Claiming Crown Distaff Dash Starter Stakes at Gulfstream at odds of 19-1, grabbed her elusive first stakes victory in the 5-year-old mare’s first-ever race at the Oldsmar oval. The 2021 winner, The Goddess Lyssa was a heck of a bargain for owner Mary K. Thomas’s Team Equistaff as a 2-year-old, selling for $10,000 at the 2019 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s June Two-Year-Olds & Horses of Racing Age Sale. In 2020, 10 years after his wife Mary Bennett sent out Perf to win the Minaret Stakes, Gerald Bennett claimed the trophy with the speedy Lady's Island. The 5-year-old mare Heavenly Score grabbed her first career stakes victory with a determined rally for jockey Pablo Morales and trainer John P. Terranova, II. Just Be Kind was bred by John C. Oxley, who won the 2001 Kentucky Derby with Monarchos and captured the 2018 Grade III Sam F. Davis with Flameaway. Not only did Spanish Concert win the 2017 Minaret in her stakes debut, she established a stakes record of 1:09.63. It was the third Minaret victory for Kathleen O’Connell, the most of any trainer. In 2016, You Bought Her became the third horse to win back-to-back editions of the Minaret, joining Forli’s Lass (1992-1993) and Whats It Gonna Be (1997-1998). You Bought Her’s 2015 victory was the first career stakes triumph for jockey Brian Pedroza. It came four weeks after a runner-up effort in the Lightning City Stakes on the turf. Owner Sanford Bacon of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., bred 2014 winner Risky Rachel from his champion mare Dancin Renee, who died less than 24 hours earlier at Old Friends Equine Thoroughbred Retirement Center in Kentucky. Appealing Stella’s 2013 victory was the first for owner Cindy Nassal, who bred the winner with her husband Bill at their Stonecliff Farm in Ocala. It’s Me Mom and her connections celebrated New Year’s Eve in grand style in 2011, winning the Minaret by 8 ¼ lengths, the largest margin in race history.