A barn fire at a farm owned by trainer Wesley Ward in Lexington, Ky., killed three horses Sunday afternoon, including the trainer’s historic first Royal Ascot winner, Strike the Tiger.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Flavien Prat, the dominant rider in Southern California in recent years, is relocating to New York this spring, he said late Saturday afternoon at Santa Anita.

Prat, 29, plans to ride the Keeneland meeting in April before moving to Belmont Park for that track’s spring-summer meeting, which begins April 28.

Prat said the move is designed to improve his chances of winning the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding jockey. Prat was nominated for the Eclipse Award for the first time in 2021, but lost the award to Joel Rosario.

An outbreak of equine herpes myeloencephalopthy on the California show horse circuit has led the parent company of Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita and the San Luis Rey Downs training center to enact a restricted horse transport policy for a two-week period beginning Friday.

According to a statement released by Santa Anita on Friday, the state’s department of food and agriculture has recommended a 14-day suspension of equine events because of the EHM outbreak in show horses.

The illness can rapidly spread among horses through direct and indirect contact.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Friday upheld a decision by its executive director to deny Bob Baffert a stay of his 90-day suspension while the trainer appeals the ban. As a result, Baffert will seek a court-ordered stay in Frankfort on March 17.

Chris Oakes, a longtime harness trainer who was indicted in 2020 along with more than two dozen other individuals connected to horse racing, was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to misbrand and adulterate drugs, according to court documents.

Oakes, 59, was given the sentence by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The sentencing guidelines called for a minimum of three years in prison.

The California Horse Racing Board on Thursday issued a series of recommendations to avoid the confusion and controversy that surrounded the running of the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf last Nov. 5 at Del Mar, including the designation of a single veterinarian to communicate gate scratches to the stewards.

WHO’S HOT

Todd Pletcher and the Donegal Racing partnership that owns Mo Donegal had been on the fence on whether to run in the Fountain of Youth on Saturday at Gulfstream Park, or merely sit tight until the Wood Memorial on April 9 at Aqueduct. Drawing post 12 on Monday gave them more to think about. And then on Wednesday morning, as Pletcher said, “sometimes decisions are made for you.”

Mo Donegal, third most recently in the Holy Bull, had “a low-grade temperature of 102” degrees, Pletcher said, and thus will be scratched from the Fountain of Youth.

Todd Pletcher and the Donegal Racing partnership that owns Mo Donegal had been on the fence on whether to run in the Fountain of Youth on Saturday at Gulfstream, or merely sit tight until the Wood Memorial April 9 at Aqueduct. Drawing post 12 on Monday gave them more to think about. And then on Wednesday morning, as Pletcher said, “sometimes decisions are made for you.”

Mo Donegal, third most recently in the Holy Bull, had “a low-grade temperature of 102” degrees, Pletcher said, and thus will be scratched from the Fountain of Youth.

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A Kentucky Circuit Court judge on Wednesday asked attorneys for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to delay the onset of a 90-day suspension of the trainer Bob Baffert until at least March 22.

Judge Thomas Wingate of the Franklin Circuit Court made the request in order to allow the commission to meet on Friday to determine whether Baffert’s appeal of the commission’s decision to deny a stay of the suspension is upheld.