Remington Park opens Quarter Horse meet

Remington Park in Oklahoma City opens its 50-date meet for Quarter Horses on Friday night. The program comprises 12 races, among them trials and the $68,000 Mighty Deck Three Stakes. The season continues through May 30.

Remington has 39 stakes scheduled for the meet, with those races worth more than a total of $5 million.

The Grade 1, $1 million Heritage Place Futurity is the richest offering of the season, and it will anchor a card of nine stakes on May 30. The program will be worth more than $2 million. Other highlights on the card include the Grade 1, $250,000 Debbie Schauf Memorial Championship, which was formerly the Remington Park Championship. The invitational, featuring some of the sport’s top older horses, has been renamed for the longtime executive director of the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association who died in August 2019.

The meet’s first major stakes for 2-year-olds is the Grade 2, $400,000-estimated Oklahoma Futurity on March 21. Trials will be held Saturday night, when Remington’s program of 12 races has a special first post of 4 p.m. Central.

Remington will race at 6 p.m. Central for most of its Thursday through Saturday night programs this meet. Post for Sunday racing is 1:30 p.m. Central. There is no Sunday card on Easter, April 14.

◗ Apprentice jockey Chel-c Bailey registered the first win of her career last Friday, when Burtnjoe ($14.20) proved a nose best in a $10,000 claiming sprint for 4-year-olds and up bred in Arkansas. Bailey, a 10-pound bug rider, was aboard for trainer James Hale. Bailey was winning with the 24th mount of her career, which she launched last September at Canterbury Park.