Handle declines marginally in August
Wagering on U.S. races, helped by two days of the Labor Day weekend, was down marginally in August, by 0.4 percent, according to figures released on Thursday by Equibase.
Matt HegartySep 04, 2014
Wagering on U.S. races, helped by two days of the Labor Day weekend, was down marginally in August, by 0.4 percent, according to figures released on Thursday by Equibase.
Jockeys at Santa Anita will be restricted to whipping a horse three times in succession before trying something else to urge the horse, a whip rule mirroring those of Europe and to be instituted at the beginning of the fall meeting starting Sept. 26, according to officials at Santa Anita and the Jockeys’ Guild.
A backlog of incomplete post-race drug tests at a widely respected laboratory in Lexington has sent regulators scrambling to get the work done while underlining the growing pains associated with the industry’s move to adopt stricter rules on therapeutic medications.
The Indiana Horse Racing Commission will consider an emergency regulation at a meeting next Thursday that would establish a threshold level for cobalt, the naturally occurring mineral that is allegedly being used by some horsemen under the belief that it could boost red-blood-cell production, according to a staff report posted on the commission’s website.
Frank Gabriel, hired in February to be the racing secretary at Belmont Park and Saratoga, is leaving the New York Racing Association and returning to Dubai.
A committee of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Wednesday tabled a proposal that would allow the state’s tracks to offer races that would only be open to horses that did not receive race day administrations of the anti-bleeding medication furosemide.
Belterra Park, the racetrack-casino that replaced River Downs in Cincinnati, will cut purses by 20 percent beginning Saturday due to lower-than-expected revenue from slot machines at the track, horsemen’s officials said Tuesday.
With one week remaining in the 2014 Saratoga season, all-sources handle is down five percent while on-track handle is up nearly one percent when compared to the same time frame last year.
New York Racing Association officials, including its former chief executive and general counsel, “missed several opportunities” to discover that the association was charging a takeout rate in some superexotic pools that was in excess of the law for a 16-month period in 2010 and 2011, according to a long-delayed report issued by the Inspector General of New York on Monday.
Hazel Park Raceway will cut purses by 25 percent beginning Aug. 29, according to an announcement in the track’s Saturday overnights.