Oak Grove, KY – In just the third week of the 2026 harness racing meet at Oak Grove Racing, Gaming & Hotel, a typical 12-race card of overnight races for the southern Kentucky oval generated the third highest betting handle in the track’s six-year history.
Monday’s (April 6) races ended on the cusp of a half-million dollars bet with just over $450,000 churning through the windows.
The Monday handle figure is only bested by the 2024 handle record at Oak Grove of $522,941 and the current record of $582,666 set last year on the Monday following the Kentucky Derby. Year over year, Monday’s card showed handle gains of 21.3 percent, and those gains continued into the following race day with Tuesday’s (April 7) card outhandling the previous year by 4.2 percent. Heading into the fourth week of racing, overall handle at Oak Grove remains up year over year by 6.7 percent with over $2 million bet so far this season.
The win percentage of favorites continues to fall at Oak Grove after back-to-back days this week that saw only four public choices reach the winner’s circle. Several long prices surprised over the two days with Copper Teen stunning in the lone amateur driving race of the week and paying $77.78 to win. Roshun Trigg trainee April’s Big Guy also pulled off yet another surprise at Oak Grove when winning the penultimate race on Monday and paying $85.74 to win – almost two years, to the day, after he landed a 26-1 upset over the track.
The penultimate race on Monday also had record payouts in the trifecta and superfecta pools. With the top four finishers sent at odds of 41-1, 9-2, 51-1 and 11-1, respectively, the 50-cent trifecta returned $8,344.72 while the 10-cent superfecta paid $6,006.40.
Tuesday’s card also had a pair of double-digit winners with Mike Murphy trainee Heknowsallthetrix paying $55.76 in the third race and Fox Valley Compass paying $30.30 two races later. The return on win bets averaged around 6-1 odds for the third week of racing, up from the 4-1 average in the second week.
Top driving honors this week split between in-laws Marcus Miller and Atlee Bender, who won three apiece through 25 races on the week. Tony Dinges led all trainers on the week with three victories, two of which he piloted to make him among the six drivers who scored doubles this week. Austin Hanners, Geremy Bobbitt, Joey Putnam, Brandon Bates and Tyler Miller all doubled on the driving side while Randy Crisler, Todd Luther, Jamaica Patton, Rob Laffoon and Kevin Miller doubled on the training side.
Action in the driving standings tightened with Ronnie Wrenn Jr. away from the Tuesday card to qualify star pacing filly Loua Dipa at The Meadows. Wrenn sits tied atop the driving standings with Brandon Bates at nine wins through the meet while Atlee Bender sits in third with six victories, Marcus Miller in fourth with five victories and Joey Putnam in fifth with four victories. The top of the trainer standings has a three-way tie between Ron Burke, Randy Crisler and Tony Dinges at five wins each. Walter Haynes Jr. sits fourth in the training standings with four wins.
Several horses scored long-awaited Oak Grove wins through the third week of the meet. Admiral Hill, who won the $30,000 Open Pace on Monday, collected his first Oak Grove win since he smashed the track record for a pacing mile with his 1:48 victory in the 2024 Kentucky Sire Stakes final for 4-year-olds. War Of Will, who won the penultimate race on the Tuesday card, made his first visit to the Oak Grove winner’s circle since 2024. And E Mode’s Desire, often a runner-up when last campaigned at Oak Grove in 2024, finally got his picture taken with a win in the third race on Monday.
The 2026 season of harness racing at Oak Grove continues on a Monday-Tuesday rotation through July 14 with a single exception for the inaugural running of the $500,000 Oak Grove Trotting Derby, which will take place on Preakness Day Saturday, May 16 and will have eliminations the week following the 2026 Kentucky Derby on Monday, May 4. First-race post time at Oak Grove is 1:10 p.m. (CDT).