LIVEWIRES TURNPIKE CONTINUES TO PROVE HIS DOMINANCE AMONG PAINT BREED, WINNING FIFTH STAKES IN HIS LAST SEVEN RACES

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – June 4, 2023 – No need for a voting ballot for Champion Paint of the Meet at Remington Park. Livewires Turnpike stamped his dominance for the genre with an easy win in Saturday’s Grade 1, $34,3000 National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Stakes.

It was the 3-year-old Paint’s fifth stakes win in his last seven races and he would be a unanimous choice in that category. He also has won seven of his last eight starts and would have been enjoying an eight-race win streak had he not broke dead last in a field of five during the Grade 1, $27,825 American Paint Stakes on April 29, changed lanes and then made a huge run only to finish second, beaten a neck by The Big Chief.

There was no such luck for his competition on Saturday as the gelded son of CRM Livewire, out of the PYC Paint Your Wagon mare Wagon on Turnpike, sent off as the prohibitive 1-5 favorite, won as he pleased while drawing away by 1-1/2 lengths at the wire in the 440-yard race for Paints and Appaloosas.

Jockey Francisco Calderon didn’t even have to ask this gelding to run once he got him straightened out. Livewires Turnpike earned $20,838 for owner Bryan Hawk of Shawnee, Okla., and improved his running lines to 14 starts, 10 wins, one second and two thirds for a bankroll of $194,874.

As the odds-on favorite, he paid $2.40 to win, $2.10 to place and $2.10 to show. He hit the wire in a time of :21.258 seconds, earning a 105 speed-index over the fast track. The stakes and track record for the race and distance is :21.059 by the winner of this race in 2014, Major Tom, an Appaloosa. His track record was worth a 106 speed index nine years ago.

This is one gelding that can bring trainer Matt Whitekiller to tears. He was all choked up about Livewires Turnpike when he won the Mister Lewie Stakes on May 20 because the race was named after his former mentor, Lewis Wartchow, once known as the “King of Paints.” It was the sixth time Whitekiller had won this stakes race. His other trips to the winner’s circle started with multiple World Champion Painted Turnpike in 2016, 2017, 2018, followed by wins from Live Moonshine in 2020 and 2021.

The tears and the champagne will flow again tonight after he showed his tail to his foes in this stakes race. It was the first win in this stakes series for Calderon and Hawk.

RP Reckless Wire (9-2 second favorite) checked in second, a head in front of third-place finisher Paint Em a Vision (15-1).

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum Stakes is named in honor of the famous attraction, and neighbor of Remington Park, in the Oklahoma City Adventure District.

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Tracked by more than 175,000 fans on Facebook and 10,700 Twitter followers, Remington Park has provided more than $320 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 will begin the 2023 Thoroughbred Season on Aug. 18. Remington Park presents simulcast racing daily and non-stop casino gaming. Visit remingtonpark.com for more information.