Emerald Downs in Auburn, Wash., will eliminate breakage at its upcoming 2024 meet and pay all winning wagers to the nearest cent, the track announced on Monday.

Emerald will become the first track outside of Kentucky to drop the practice of rounding payoffs to the nearest nickel or dime, a holdover from the days when payouts were distributed in the form of cash and tellers needed to quickly redeem winning wagers. Emerald said in a release that it has estimated that the decision will lead to an additional $400,000 distributed to winning bettors this year.

Veteran racecaller Tony Calo will become the new track announcer at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky., when that track opens its meet this summer, according to Ellis’s parent company, Churchill Downs Inc.

Calo, who has called races at Golden Gate Fields, Bay Meadows, and, most recently, Finger Lakes racetrack in upstate New York, was first hired by Churchill Downs last year as the new racecaller for Turfway Park, another Kentucky track that Churchill owns. At Ellis Park, he will replace Jimmy McNerney, who was also the racecaller at Turfway prior to Calo being hired last year.

Tina Marie Bond, a horse owner, the president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, and the wife of trainer H. James Bond, was elected president of the National Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association at the organization’s annual meeting in Florida this week.

Bond, who was elected president of the New York THA last year, is the first woman to head the National THA, which was established in 1994. The organization has had four presidents in its history.

Jockey Declan Carroll will retire from riding, but will remain in the Thoroughbred industry, he announced on social media Wednesday night.

Carroll, 24, said he will be taking a position with trainer Cherie DeVaux and agent David Ingordo’s bloodstock operation. DeVaux – who hung out her shingle in 2018, and whose barn enjoyed a breakout season last year – and Ingordo are married, and frequently collaborate in racing endeavors.

Supporters of a bill that would require Maryland to issue $400 million in bonds for the reconstruction of Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore assured members of the House of Delegates Ways and Means Committee that the bill would lead to positive outcomes for the neighborhood surrounding the track at a hearing on Tuesday.

Junior Alvarado, who has won such major races as the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and Saudi Cup in recent months, has been honored with the 2024 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in a ballot of riders nationwide.

The result was announced on Friday by Santa Anita, which administers the award. Alvarado, 37, will receive the Woolf Award at a ceremony at Santa Anita at a date to be determined.

The Woolf Award, first presented in 1950, honors riders for achievement on the racetrack as well as personal character.

Equibase, the official data supplier of Thoroughbred racing in the U.S., will make a full year of its racing data available for research and evaluation purposes, the company announced on Monday.

The release of a large batch of Equibase’s racing data has been sought for years by a number of handicappers and researchers who say they are interested in teasing out information from the raw data. The dataset will include all past-performance data from all Equibase-charted races in 2023, along with the result charts.

Two trainers who are members of a horsemen’s advisory group to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority advocated for HISA to extend its jurisdiction to 2-year-old sales on Monday during a livestreamed “town hall” meeting with HISA’s chief executive officer.

The Florida legislature on Friday passed a tax bill that will remove a sunset provision on more than $30 million in subsidies and tax credits for the racing industry that were first authorized last year.