DerbyWars, the Louisville, Ky.-based company that offers daily fantasy contests on horse races, has reached an agreement with Hawthorne Race Course near Chicago that will pay the track a fee for contests that include Hawthorne's races, according to officials.
Total all-sources handle on races run at New York Racing Association tracks in 2015 was $2,243,039,376, a 3 percent increase from 2014 when $2,177,979,073 was bet, NYRA announced Thursday.
The board of the New York Racing Association on Thursday approved a resolution to support federal legislation that would appoint a private, nonprofit company as the overseer of the sport’s medication policies, becoming the second major Thoroughbred racetrack operator to endorse the controversial bill.
Churchill Downs Inc. and its ticketing provider, Ticketmaster, will create an Internet resale exchange this year for ticketholders to the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks, the two companies announced on Thursday.
Mike Battaglia will call his final race this weekend at Turfway Park, where he has been the regular caller since 1973.
During Laurel Park’s winter break, Sinatra, general manager of the Maryland Jockey Club, has focused on two OTBs under development, one on the fairgrounds of the Maryland State Fair in Timonium and the other in Boonsboro, approximately 65 miles northwest of Baltimore.
Ernie Myers, a star of radio in the San Diego area for decades who also called races and hosted Del Mar's simulcast show, died from Parkinson's disease on Tuesday at his San Diego-area home. He was 86.
The Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Park Derby and the $200,000 Sunland Park Oaks have been replaced on the March 20 card with the $415,000 Sunland Park Festival of Racing Stakes and the $200,000 Plum Pretty, according to a revised stakes schedule the track provided to Daily Racing Form. The changes need the approval of the New Mexico Racing Commission at its next meeting March 17.
Norman E. Casse, an influential figure in the Florida Thoroughbred industry for several decades and the patriarch of a family of prominent horsemen, died Sunday at his farm in Ocala, Fla., following an illness. He was 79.
Jason Wilson, a Jockey Club management official since 2010, has been hired to head up Equibase, the data company The Jockey Club owns in partnership with a racetrack trade group, the company announced on Monday.
