Oklahoma trainer Mike Teel dies at 63

Mike Teel, an Oklahoma-based trainer who won titles at Will Rogers Downs and Fair Meadows, died Friday, according to friends. He had been battling cancer. Teel was 63.

Teel on Monday was represented by the final winner of his career when first-time starter Copper Flash captured the eighth race at Will Rogers, a maiden special weight sprint for fillies and mares bred in Oklahoma. The 3-year-old had been entered prior to her trainer’s death.

Teel was a native of Duncan, Okla., whose first win as a trainer came at the now-shuttered Blue Ribbon Downs in 1991. Among his major winners were Runaway Wil in the MBNA America Challenge Championship and Some Dashing Dude in the Heritage Place Derby, according to the American Quarter Horse Association.

Teel’s top Thoroughbred trainees included More Than Even, with whom he won the $50,000 Useeit and $50,000 Te Ata last fall at Remington Park. More Than Even was recently named the champion Oklahoma-bred of 2013, and on Monday, she captured the $55,000 Distaff at Will Rogers in her first start for trainer Roger Engel. Teel also trained Tight Britches for the first three wins of her current nine-race win streak.

Teel won 510 races from 2,900 career starters for $5 million in stable earnings, according to Daily Racing Form statistics.

Services for Teel will be held at 1 p.m. Central on Wednesday at Fitzgerald South Colonial Chapel at 3612 E. 91st St., in Tulsa, Okla. Teel’s survivors include his wife, Sue, and daughter Michelle Rae and her husband, Russell Rhone, according to an obituary from Fitzgerald Funeral Home.