Oak Grove: 2025 harness meet set to commence

An ambitious 2025 Kentucky harness racing season kicks off this Monday (March 24) at Oak Grove Racing, Gaming & Hotel with the first of two 12-race cards slated for opening week. The start of the spring-summer season at Oak Grove puts an exclamation point on an exciting weekend in the sporting world in the Bluegrass State, which also features the University of Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team kicking off their NCAA Tournament run and the Jeff Ruby Steaks from Turfway Park.

Oak Grove will host live Standardbred racing on Monday and Tuesday afternoons through July 16 with a new, earlier first post of 1:45 p.m. CDT (2:45 p.m. EDT). The 36-day meet will offer more than $10 million in purses, and promises to attract the greatest drivers, trainers and owners in the sport with some of the highest overnight purses in North America and a compelling stakes schedule for horses sired and foaled in Kentucky. As always, fans can access race-day analysis from Ray Cotolo through the Oak Grove website (https://www.oakgrovegaming.com/racing/handicapping-resources/).

Monday's card is headlined by a $30,000 Open Pace, carded as race six, in which 15-time winner Congressional has been installed the 5-2 morning line favorite in his debut for trainer-driver Verlin Yoder. The 5-year-old Always B Miki gelding competed on the Kentucky Sire Stakes circuit in a 4-year-old season that saw him win 10 of 36 starts and bank $151,118 in purses. His main competition comes from John Filomeno trainee He'zzz A Wise Sky, who is the 3-1 second choice from the outside post in the field of eight. The Miami Valley invader finished second in his last two tries, both against Open company, and will be driven by Cordarius Stewart.

Oak Grove, located just minutes from Interstate 24 just north of the Kentucky-Tennessee border, also offers simulcast wagering from tracks across North America seven days a week, including a pair of Kentucky Derby preps from a pair of Oak Grove's sister tracks under the Churchill Downs banner this Saturday (March 22): the Jeff Ruby Steaks, at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky; and the Louisiana Derby, from the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. Both races anchor an all-stakes Bayou Bluegrass Pick-5 offered by Churchill, featuring a $1 minimum and a 15% takeout.

For more information racing at Oak Grove, as well as the track's luxurious five-story hotel, RV park, gaming floor, concerts and events, visit oakgrovegaming.com.

-edited release (Oak Grove Racing Publicity)