The two-hour broadcast of the Belmont Stakes on NBC Saturday drew a 4.3 rating, the network said Sunday, down 6.5 percent from the rating of the same broadcast in 2013, when no Triple Crown was on the line as well.
The purses for the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Breeders’ Cup Turf have each been raised by $1 million, Breeders’ Cup Ltd. announced Saturday through its broadcast partner, NBC.
All-sources betting on this year’s Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in New York was down 37 percent compared with wagering on the race last year, when interest in the race was buoyed significantly by the popular and ultimately successful bid for a Triple Crown by American Pharoah, according to charts of the races.
A pair of bills to amend and update Michigan’s Horse Racing Law of 1995 await the signature of Gov. Rick Snyder after being approved by the state legislature on Thursday.
When trainer Brian Lynch surrendered his license this week in New York after testing positive for a chemical related to marijuana, many people expressed astonishment at such a dramatic outcome. However, regulators in other racing states in the U.S. said their own racing licensees would face a similar outcome for failing a drug test.
The New York Racing Association has overstated the financial results from its racing operations in recent years and has not been able to generate a surplus from the racing side of its business, contrary to what its top officials have claimed, the New York Comptroller’s Office contends in an audit of the association released Friday.
A federal bill providing funding for the IRS and other agencies includes language asking federal tax authorities to consider changes to the taxing and reporting of parimutuel winnings that would be beneficial to horseplayers, according to the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which has been lobbying for the changes.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has introduced legislation that would return the New York Racing Association to private control but reserve six appointments to NYRA's board for the state governor and place a cap on the amount of money that NYRA receives as subsidies from a casino adjacent to its Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.
Two West Virginia-bred stakes scheduled for August at Charles Town will now be run on the track’s Race for the Ribbon card Sept. 17.
John Hendrickson, the husband of the prominent Thoroughbred owner and breeder Marylou Whitney, has resigned his position as an adviser for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the New York Racing Association’s board of directors, according to a horse-racing advocacy group based in Saratoga Springs.
