Data have shown synthetic surfaces succeeding in the very area they were supposed to most urgently address – reducing racing fatalities. But there have been problems with just about everything else. Synthetics may be no safer for daily training than a well-kept dirt surface, and they have cost racetracks millions of dollars to install and maintain during an economic downturn.
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Wednesday unanimously approved applications by both Keeneland and the Red Mile to operate hundreds of slot machine-like devices at separate facilities at their Lexington locations.
Major account-wagering providers had nothing definitive to say on Tuesday about how they would pay for a new 0.5 percent tax levied by the Kentucky legislature on wagers made by Kentucky residents through their operations.
The overall fatality rate for North American Thoroughbreds has remained relatively unchanged over the five years that injury data have been collected despite widespread efforts to improve the health and safety of racehorses over the same time frame, according to updated figures released on Monday afternoon by the Jockey Club.
The fatality rate for U.S. Thoroughbreds on artificial surfaces continued to be sharply lower than the fatality rate on dirt surfaces in 2013, according to data released by The Jockey Club on Monday from the Equine Injury Database.
The Kentucky legislature reached a deal on a budget Sunday that reinstates a 1.5 percent tax on Instant Racing machines and assesses for the first time a 0.5 percent tax on bets made through account-wagering companies.
The Eclipse Awards ceremony will continue to be held at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., through 2016 under a two-year renewal deal the track reached with the ceremony’s organizers, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association announced Wednesday.
A racing medication policy group has recommended that horsemen be able to use the bronchodilator albuterol up to 72 hours prior to a race as an alternative to the more strictly regulated drug clenbuterol, the group, the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, said after conducting a board meeting Monday.
Lexington’s two racetracks, Keeneland and the Red Mile, have separately applied to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission for licenses to operate Instant Racing machines, the slot machine-like devices already operated by two Thoroughbred tracks in the state, according to officials with knowledge of the applications.
Legislators in West Virginia helped to close a budget gap for the next fiscal year by diverting 10 percent of the amount the state’s racing industries receive from slot machines to the state’s general fund.
