Ron Paolucci, a horse owner whose Loooch Racing Stables won hundreds of races in the 2010s, was sentenced on Monday to 52 months in prison and ordered to pay $38.9 million in restitution on tax fraud charges, according to the U.S. attorney in Northern Texas, which prosecuted the case.

Bill Knauf, the vice president of business development at Monmouth Park in New Jersey, has been named the president and general manager of the non-profit company that will run racing in Maryland for the foreseeable future.

Knauf, who has 27 years of experience in the racing industry, was selected to the positions by the board of the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, a state commission that was set up to implement the provisions of legislation passed earlier this year that will result in the consolidation of racing at a rebuilt Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.

Stan Bowker, a longtime steward and racing executive who was instrumental in the opening of several racetracks, died on Sept. 10 in Clearwater, Fla., after a long illness, according to family members. Bowker was 81.

Bowker, who retired in 2021 after five decades in the racing industry, played roles in the establishment of new racetracks in Iowa and Virginia, and he was also a contributor to the opening and reopening of Canterbury Park in Minnesota. In all three cases, he also served in executive roles at the tracks.

September has been a productive month in stakes for California trainer Jeff Mullins with runners on the upswing.

On Sept. 8, Artislas won his stakes debut in the Del Mar Juvenile Turf at a mile on closing day of the track’s summer meeting. On Saturday, Man O Rose won his stakes debut by eight lengths in the E.B. Johnston Stakes for California-bred milers at Los Alamitos.

Both could start at the Santa Anita autumn meeting.

Johnny Podres must earn his way into the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 2.

A 7-year-old, Johnny Podres is scheduled to start in the richest running of the Grade 2 Eddie D Stakes at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita on Sept. 28.

The value of the race has been enhanced from $200,000 in 2023 to $750,000 this year, one of three stakes with significantly higher purses on Sept. 28 through a promotion by the track’s parent company, 1/ST Racing.

Maria Borell, the one-time trainer of 2015 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Runhappy whose career was derailed by animal-cruelty charges filed in Kentucky in 2016, has been issued a trainer’s license in California, according to Borell and state records.

Borell said Friday that that she plans to train horses in California for several clients. Borell has lived in Kentucky since 2022, when she returned to the state to deal with the charges. The charges were dropped last year in a deal with local prosecutors. She has maintained her innocence in the matter since she was first charged.

A former regulatory veterinarian at Hawthorne Race Course in Cicero, Illinois, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that personnel at the track and Illinois Racing Board conspired to overrule her determinations that some horses were unfit to race, according to a copy of the lawsuit.

Belmont at the Big A | Race 8 | Post Time 4:42 p.m. (ET)

Robert Hutt, president of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, has filed a lawsuit seeking the removal of seven directors from the organization’s board, alleging that the directors have stymied efforts to investigate actions undertaken by the group’s preceding management.

Hutt, who also is a board member of the Pennsylvania THA, was joined in the lawsuit by fellow board member John Julia. The suit, which was filed in a Bucks County Civil Court, names seven board members as defendants, including the current executive director, Jeff Matty.

Chuck Simon, a former trainer who was perhaps best known for his outsized and unsparing presence on social media, died on Sunday at a hospital in Saratoga. Simon, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, was 57.