REMINGTON PARK’S OPENING NIGHT RACES SET FOR MARCH 3
The Opening Night of racing for the 2022 Remington Park American Quarter Horse, Paint and Appaloosa Season is set. An eight-race card on Thursday, March 3 will start the 50-date season.
The Opening Night program will offer total purses of $134,100 and drew a total of 65 horses, for an average field size of 8.1 per race.
Juan Pulido will begin defense of his first Remington Park jockey title by riding two races on Opening Night. Challengers for the crown this season include AQHA 2021 Champion Jockey Francisco Calderon, and two-time AQHA Champion (2019 & 2020) James Flores. Calderon will compete in two races on March 3 while Flores has one mount.
Pulido won the season title in 2021 with 47 wins, the lowest amount of victories needed to earn the title since Flores was champ in 2018 with 43 victories. Flores will try to regain the Remington Park crown he held for three straight seasons from 2018-2020. The all-time record for jockey wins in a season is held by Hall of Famer G.R. Carter who had 98 triumphs in 2008.
Eddie Willis begins his attempt to win a 13th Remington Park training title with two horses entered for Opening Night. Willis, an Oklahoma Horse Racing Hall of Fame trainer, has won the Remington Park season title for three consecutive years (2019-2021). He also holds the record for seasonal training wins with 53 in 2011.
2021 AQHA Champion Trainer Jason Olmstead will saddle just one to start the season, Kools Gotta Secret in race seven Opening Night, a $30,000 claiming event at 330 yards. The 3-year-old filly has won two of three career races. However, her lone defeat came at Remington Park in April last year, when she finished eighth in her career debut against Oklahoma-breds in $25,000 maiden claiming competition.
The top stretch-sprinting athletes in America will compete through May 28 at Remington Park with a series of big-money futurities and derbies dotting the schedule throughout.
Opening Night is a standard overnight program of racing. However, the remainder of the first weekend of the season is full of all-important qualifying trials for the first set of futurities and derby on the calendar.
Friday night racing will include trials for the Oklahoma Paint & Appaloosa Futurity. The Grade 1 final, with an estimated purse of $175,000, will be conducted on March 19.
Saturday action is dominated by trials for the historic Oklahoma Futurity, contested for the 81st time on March 19. A field of 10 qualifiers will make the Grade 2 event, with an estimated purse of $475,000.
Sunday racing will host trials for the Grade 3, $250,000 (estimated) Oklahoma Derby with the final also on March 19.
The initial stakes races of the season take place this weekend with the $68,000 Mighty Deck Three Stakes on Friday night. The restricted Grade 2 race is for Oklahoma-breds, 3-year-olds and older, going 250 yards.
The Grade 3, $50,000 SLM Big Daddy Stakes is set for Sunday. The 550-yard test for 3-year-olds and older, will feature many runners that will campaign in turn stakes events the rest of the season.
Remington Park races Thursday through Sunday, March 3-6 to begin the season. First race is 6pm nightly, with Sunday action underway at 4pm. All times are Central.
Tracked by more than 167,000 fans on Facebook and 10,600 Twitter followers, Remington Park has provided more than $285 Million to the State of Oklahoma general education fund since the opening of the casino in 2005. Located at the junction of Interstates 35 & 44, in the heart of the Oklahoma City Adventure District, Remington Park begins the 2022 American Quarter Horse, Paint and Appaloosa racing season on March 3. Simulcast horse racing featured daily, the casino is always open! Visit remingtonpark.com for more information.
-30-