Juvenile champ Street Sense makes return in Tampa Bay Derby

By: SPORTS NETWORK

Oldsmar, FL (Sports Network) - Eclipse Award winner Street Sense and local stakes winner Any Given Saturday top a field of seven for Saturday's $300,000 Tampa Bay Derby. This will be the 2007 debut of Street Sense, winner of last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

Street Sense has been off nearly five months since posting a 10 length victory in the Juvenile at Churchill Downs. The colt is owned by James Tafel and trained by Carl Nafzger.

"For our horse, it's going to be really important how he finishes," noted Nafzger. "Not as much as where he finishes, is how he finishes, and then we step forward and go forward because we have to make a big step from here to the next race."

The three-year-old will start from post 2 with Calvin Borel in the saddle. Street Sense has two wins in five career starts for $1,178,200.

Trained by Todd Pletcher, Any Given Saturday will start from post 4 in the seven horse field with John Velazquez set to ride. The colt has earned $164,213 for WinStar Farm with three wins in four starts. His lone loss was a second in last year's Kentucky Jockey Club Juvenile.

Pletcher is currently dominating the Kentucky Derby prep races and brings Any Given Saturday into this race off a win in the Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay.

Jose Lezcano, the 2006 Tampa Bay Derby winning jockey, is back with lightly raced Optimistic Steve. Lezcano captured last year's edition with Deputy Glitters who ran eighth in the Kentucky Derby.

Optimistic Steve, trained by Nick Zito, has two career starts and is coming off his maiden victory last month at Gulfstream Park. Owned by Robert LaPenta, the bay colt will break from the inside post.

Completing the field in post position order for the 1 1/16 mile Tampa Bay Derby are All I Can Get, Most Distinguished, Lisselan Muse and Delightful Kiss.

The Tampa Bay Derby is slated as race 12 of 13 races Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs with a post-time of 5:45 p.m. (et).