The Jockey Club’s Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing has been scheduled for Aug. 14 this year at the Gideon Putnam Resort in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the Jockey Club announced Tuesday. The Round Table typically features a wrap-up of the Jockey Club’s activities over the past year and presentations on topics considered important to horse racing.

Subsidies provided by Indiana casinos to the state’s Thoroughbred horsemen through purses and breeders’ funds would drop 23 percent in 2012 under a proposed budget introduced by Gov. Mitch Daniels, according to a fiscal impact statement distributed by the state.

Subsidies for the Thoroughbred industry would drop from a projected $26.1 million in 2012 to $18.1 million if the horse racing cuts in the budget are approved, according to the statement. Subsidies to the Standardbred industry would be cut a similar amount, with the savings transferred to the state’s general fund.

Churchill Downs Inc. has reached a five-year extension to an agreement that made Yum! Brands the “presenting sponsor” for the Kentucky Derby, the two companies announced late on Thursday.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed by the two companies in a release. Churchill and Yum first reached an agreement for the Derby in 2006, and the extension will make Yum the presenting sponsor through the 2015 Derby.
Like Churchill, Yum! Brands is based in Louisville. The company owns the franchises for KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s and A&W.
 

With the highly anticipated announcement for Horse of the Year just days away, the co-owner of Zenyatta, and the trainer of Blame, both said they would be “disappointed” if their horse was not named Horse of the Year, but the difference in their level of discomfort was stark.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Sand Cove, who earned $379,055 in stakes races last season, has been named the overall winner of the local Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society’s 2010 Ontario-sired racing rewards program.

The program is based on earnings in the province’s black-type stakes races with prizes for the breeders of the top two finishers in each of six categories.

A $10,000 bonus and $2,000 Ontario-sired stallion breeding certificate is awarded for first place, with a $5,000 bonus and $1,000 certificate going to the runner-up.

The New Jersey Senate and Assembly passed legislation late on Monday night that would direct $30 million over the next three years from a newly created state casino fund to the New Jersey Racing Commission, according to reports.

The New Jersey Senate and Assembly passed legislation on Monday that would direct $30 million over the next three years from a state casino fund to the New Jersey Racing Commission, according to reports.

The legislation, which has been sent to Gov. Chris Christie, would reportedly be distributed to racetracks and horsemen by the commission, though it was unclear on Tuesday how those distributions would be allocated. Officials for the commission and the state’s horsemen did not immediately return phone calls on Tuesday.

Total wagering, purses, and race days all fell significantly in 2010 compared to 2009, according to figures released on Wednesday by the Jockey Club, with betting on U.S. races declining to its lowest level since 1995.

Frank Stronach, the chairman and controlling shareholder in MI Developments, has offered to swap all of his supervoting shares in the company for all of MI Developments’s racing-related assets, including Santa Anita Park in California and Gulfstream Park in Florida, the company announced Wednesday.

The Maryland Racing Commission on Tuesday rejected a proposal by the owners of Laurel Park and Pimlico Racecourse to run 146 live race dates at the tracks in 2011 after horsemen expressed opposition to several provisions in the proposal, according to reports.