GRADE 3 REMINGTON PARK OAKS NOMINATIONS FEATURE MULTIPLE GRADED WINNERS EXPECTED IN OKLAHOMA CITY

OKLAHOMA CITY – The $200,000 Remington Park Oaks, a new Grade 3 event this year, is the main undercard race on the Oklahoma Derby Day program on Sunday, Sept. 30. Nominations were released today with many graded stakes winners expected for the 1-1/16 miles event for 3-year-old fillies.

A couple of those anticipated for the Remington Park Oaks, competed in the $100,000 Trapeze Stakes last year, Remington Park’s top 2-year-old stakes offering for fillies. Cosmic Burst won the Trapeze with Sassy Siena finishing fifth. The two moved on to success in the Oaklawn Park 3-year-old filly series earlier this year. Cosmic Burst won the Grade 3, $200,000 Honeybee Stakes on March 10 with Sassy Siena finishing third.
On April 13, in the richest race of the series in Hot Springs, Ark., Sassy Siena managed to flip the results and win the Grade 3, $400,000 Fantasy Stakes with Cosmic Burst finishing fourth.

Trained by Brad Cox, Sassy Siena moved on to the Grade 1, $1,000,000 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., where she was sixth in a field of 14. Since then she has finished seventh in the Grade 3, $200,000 Iowa Oaks at Prairie Meadows and second in the Grade 3, $100,000 Monmouth Park Oaks in New Jersey.

Conditioned by Remington Park’s all-time leading trainer, Donnie Von Hemel, Cosmic Burst rested off her Fantasy Stakes effort until a second-place run in the Iowa Oaks. She then tried the turf in the Grade 3, $100,000 Pucker Up Stakes at Arlington Park in Chicago in August, finishing seventh. Cosmic Burst has put in two works at Remington Park to prepare for the Oaks, a five-furlong move on Sept. 9 and a six-furlong breeze on Sept. 18.

National Hall of Fame Trainer Steve Asmussen, currently leading the Remington Park standings, has nominated three to the Oaks with the most probable participant being She’s A Julie, winner of the Grade 3 Iowa Oaks. Off that 5-1/2 length win, She’s A Julie stepped up to face Grade 1 competition in the $600,000 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga in upstate New York. She was second throughout that 1-1/4 event, finishing 6-1/2 lengths behind the victor, Eskimo Kisses.

Trainer John Sadler has nominated True Royalty to the Remington Park Oaks. Winner of the Grade 3, $100,000 Torrey Pines Stakes at Del Mar on Aug. 26, True Royalty would make her first career start outside of California if she races in Oklahoma City. Currently, True Royalty has started seven times, all in the Golden State.

Others begin pointed to the Remington Park Oaks include: Hold Her Tight, trained by Larry Jones, third in the Grade 3, Iowa Oaks behind She’s A Julie and Cosmic Burst; Stronger Than Ever, trained by Ken McPeek, would make her first start since a sixth-place effort in the Grade 3, Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn in April; and True Dream, also trained by McPeek, a winner of three of her last four races including an allowance win at Ellis Park in western Kentucky in late July.

More information on possible Remington Park Oaks contenders will be available in the days leading up to the race.

The Remington Park Oaks is one of 10 stakes races on the Oklahoma Derby Day program on Sept. 30, which starts at 3pm-Central. The Grade 3, $400,000 Oklahoma Derby is the headline event on the card which will mark the first time in Remington Park, and Oklahoma, Thoroughbred racing history that more than one graded stakes race has been contested on the same program.

-30-