Will Rogers Downs begins spring meet Monday

Will Rogers Downs opens Monday for its spring meet. The meet runs through May 17 and features 29 live racing days.

The Claremore, Okla., track will race Mondays and Tuesdays starting in March and then add Wednesday racing through April and May.

The featured races of the meet are two sprint stakes for open company in April, the $50,000 Wilma Mankiller for fillies and mares April 17 and the $50,000 Highland Ice for 3-year-olds and up April 18. The rest of the stakes races during the meet are for Oklahoma-breds.

Opening day drew a 10-race card with first post at 2 p.m. EST. Three of the races are at the maiden special weight level; open maidens run for $21,000 and Oklahoma-bred maidens run for $25,200.

The card also includes three allowance races, the richest of which is a $30,000 race for conditioned older fillies and mares. That race, the fourth on the day, drew a six-horse field that includes a pair of stakes winners. Dicey, in post No. 5, won the Miranda Diane against fellow Oklahoma-breds at Will Rogers last year. Kentucky-bred Distorted Flash won the 2022 Wilma Mankiller; she breaks from the rail in Monday's allowance.

Kylee Jordan, who led all jockeys at Will Rogers last spring with 44 victories, returns to the track for this spring meet. She has mounts in five of the 10 races opening day, including on Dicey in the featured allowance. Trainer Scott Young, who had a meet-leading 20 wins at Will Rogers last spring, also returns on opening day with three runners.

Will Rogers offers win, place, show, $2 exacta, $0.50 trifecta, and $0.10 superfecta wagering on each race. The track also offers rolling $2 doubles and 50-cent Pick 3 wagers throughout the day, as well as Pick 4 and Pick 5 sequences. On opening day the Pick 4 wagers begin in the second and seventh races, and the track offers the Pick 5 beginning in the first and sixth races.