Dr. Jerome M. Torsney, whose stable included 1978 turf champion Mac Diarmida and multiple Grade 2 winner Honey Fox, died at his New Jersey home on July 13. He was 75.

For the last 40 years, Torsney campaigned horses on both sides of the Atlantic and was as well known in Irish racing as in America. His Irish-bred stakes winners included Fatima's Gift, a homebred daughter of Honey Fox; Group 3 Curragh Stakes winners Jay Bird and Mini Gift; Noble Mark, a daughter of Fatima's Gift; and the 1981 Irish Cesarewitch winner, The Neurologist.

John Roark was reelected to a two-year term as president of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association at the group's convention on Sunday in Cleveland. Roark, who also is the president of the Texas Horsemen's partnership and a board member of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, defeated Linda Mills, president of the Florida HBPA, in the election, and said he will make combating the piracy of simulcast signals by offshore betting parlors the focus of his second term.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Ipi Tombe recently suffered a minor setback that will keep her from running July 26 in the Grade 1 Diana Handicap at Saratoga but it is not serious enough to keep her from the Aug. 16 Beverly D. at Arlington Park, her trainer, Elliott Walden, said Monday.

Walden said Ipi Tombe rapped her left front leg during a three-furlong breeze last week at Churchill Downs, which caused the leg to swell and forced her to miss two days of training.

"She missed a pivotal work" toward the Diana, said Walden. "She's already back to the track, and everything's fine."

PHOENIX - Nearly three years after an accident at now-defunct Prescott Downs left her permanently disabled, jockey Stacy Burton reached a $3 million settlement with the state of Arizona in a lawsuit she filed over the incident.

Burton was riding Lot O Love in a $2,000 claimer on Aug. 26, 2000. Another horse, Pacific Wind, fell on the sloppy track during the race, got up, and then started to run the wrong way. This led to a head-on collision with Lot O Love and Burton. Both horses died on the scene, and Burton was in a coma for 23 days.

The Breeders' Cup board of directors Monday agreed to follow the new American Graded Stakes Committee drug-testing policy, which calls for extensive testing for horses racing in graded stakes. Any race that does not conform to the policy will be ineligible for graded status the next year. . . . Trainer Victor Cuadra was suspended 15 days and fined $2,000 by the New York stewards for a postrace clenbuterol positive on one of his runners, April Morning, who finished third in Aqueduct's ninth race on May 2.

Other Sunday stakes

* Oxford Tea Party lit up the tote board in the $50,000 Daniel Van Clief Stakes at Colonial Downs, paying $82.80 to win the 1 1/16-mile turf race.

* Letithappencaptain, beaten favorite against open company in her last two starts, returned to the friendly ranks of Louisiana-breds and captured the $50,000 Fantasia Stakes by two lengths at Louisiana Downs.

* Ding's Thing ($6.80) cruised to an eight-length win in the $40,000 Tah Dah Stakes for Ohio-bred 2-year-old fillies at River Downs.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Some of the biggest names in racing will be on hand Sunday at Hollywood Park to pay tribute to Laffit Pincay Jr., the Hall of Fame rider who retired in late April with more winners - 9,530 - than any other jockey.

Pincay, 56, retired from a riding career of nearly 39 years after suffering fractures to his neck and back in a fall during a race on March 1 at Santa Anita, and Sunday's program has been in the planning stages since then. A 30-minute ceremony for Pincay will be held in the winner's circle after the sixth race.

Sponsor deals show priorities are misplaced

While I admire Jerry Bailey's skill as a top jockey, his comment "I guess I missed the chapter where VISA invented horse racing," as noted in the June 29 letter "Bailey on wrong page knocking Crown sponsor," about a longtime supporter of the game, really struck me the wrong way.

Two men accused of killing a stakes-placed Thoroughbred mare on April 26 were ordered Thursday to stand trial in Sonoma County Superior Court in California on charges of animal cruelty.

Liobijildo Guzman Herrera, 22, and Noel Guido-Silva, 22, of Boyes Hot Springs, Calif., pleaded not guilty to the animal cruelty charges but may face additional charges in the death of 24-year-old Gentle Song, who was apparently chased and run down by a pair of motor vehicles in a fenced pasture in Kenwood.

Wagering on the 12 races televised by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association on CBS this summer was up $2.7 million, or 17 percent, compared to last year, according to figures provided by the NTRA on Thursday.

The $2.7 million figure does not include wagering on three national pick threes linked to the broadcasts, the NTRA said. Wagering on those three bets was $1.15 million this year, up 64 percent compared to last year.