A federal judge has ruled that the New York Racing Association must pay Bob Baffert nearly $110,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs related to his decision to seek an injunction preventing NYRA from enforcing a ban of the trainer issued in May.

Brad Cox continues to hold a narrow lead in stable earnings over Steve Asmussen in 2021 as both draw ever closer to breaking the record for a single year.

Through Sunday, Cox runners had earned $31,001,731 this year versus $30,565,923 for Asmussen, according to Daily Racing Form statistics. The all-time record for one-year earnings is $31,112,144, set in 2019 by Chad Brown.

Hot Rod Charlie, the hard-knocking 3-year-old colt whose owners include a group of former college classmates, was voted the winner of the Vox Populi Award, given annually by the family of Penny Chenery, the administrators of the award announced.

Jockey E.T. Baird won the 2,500th race of his career Sunday at Hawthorne Racecourse.  

Baird guided Dancin At Midnight across the wire first in the sixth race to hit his milestone. It was his second winner Sunday at Hawthorne, with both horses trained by Steve Manley, for whom Baird rode Breeze Rider to victory Saturday at Turfway Park in the My Charmer Stakes. 

Veteran trainer Chris Block has been elected president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, the northern Illinois horsemen's group announced this weekend.  

Block defeated incumbent Mike Campbell, another longtime Illinois trainer, with 62 percent of the vote, which was completed Dec. 1 and was tabulated on Dec. 10. Campbell has been ITHA president since 2008, during which Block held a seat on the ITHA board. 

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by trainer-owner Mick Ruis against the California Horse Racing Board can proceed, according to the attorney for Ruis.

Darrell Vienna, the attorney, said that Judge Mitchell Beckloff ruled against a CHRB motion to dismiss the case, which alleges that the CHRB failed to follow state racing rules when it allowed the result of the 2018 Santa Anita Derby to stand. Ruis owned and trained the second-place horse in the race, Bolt d’Oro, who is now a stallion at Spendthrift Farm.

Fourteen horses in training with Wesley Ward and owned by Ken Ramsey have been entered in the Keeneland January sale after a judge ruled on Thursday that the sale should proceed to satisfy debts owed to the trainer.

Blood and tissue samples from Medina Spirit, who collapsed on Monday and died of a suspected cardiac event, have been sent to the University of Minnesota to be included in a large ongoing project attempting to find genetic markers for sudden cardiac death in racehorses.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. -- Jeff Drown, the owner of Zandon, second by a nose to Mo Donegal in last Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct, has filed a protest with the New York State Gaming Commission of the stewards’ decision not to disqualify Mo Donegal for alleged interference in deep stretch of the race.

The New York Racing Association would rely on state-backed bonds to help fund the redevelopment of Belmont Park, which would include a new, smaller building, a renovation of the three current racing surfaces and the potential for the installation of a synthetic surface that will allow it to consolidate downstate racing at one facility.