Mark Verge, a Los Angeles entrepreneur and horse owner, has been appointed to a senior position at the Stronach Group, the private company that owns Santa Anita Park and Gulfstream, Verge confirmed Thursday.
Last Monday, Canada’s racing industries were stunned when the state-owned Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, which owns and operates the slot machines at the province’s 17 racetrack casinos, said that it would pull slot machines from a number of racetracks as part of a larger reorganization of gambling.
Both houses of the New York legislature have approved a bill that would provide for up to seven new casinos in the state.
John Ward, the Kentucky Derby-winning trainer who was selected last month as the executive director of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, will appear before the state’s executive branch ethics committee next week to discuss whether the job will pose a conflict of interest with the training operation he co-owns with his wife.
The first dominos in the Ontario racetrack-slots program fell Wednesday morning with the news that slots areas at Fort Erie, Windsor Raceway, and Hiawatha Horse Park would be closed permanently by the end of April.
The Ontario Horse Racing Industry Association is battling on after Ontario’s government instructed the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to wind up the province’s racetrack slots program by March 31, 2013.
Churchill Downs Inc. posted record revenue and earnings per share during 2011 because of strong growth in its casino and online wagering businesses, according to financial statements released late on Monday.
John Veitch, the former chief state steward for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, filed a lawsuit in Franklin Circuit Court on Friday disputing his firing last year and a one-year suspension approved by the commission in mid-February.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, which owns and operates the slot machines at Ontario racetracks, recommended in a report released Monday that all of the racing subsidies from the machines be redirected to the provincial government as of March 13, 2013.
Trainer Tom Amoss, who is facing a 60-day suspension in Indiana for multiple medication positives over the past 12 months, was fined $500 by stewards at Fair Grounds late in February after a horse he trained tested positive for the painkiller naproxen.
