This year’s National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be once again open to the public, one year after the ceremony was canceled outright due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The ceremony, scheduled for Aug. 6 at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., will begin at 10:30 a.m., with doors opening at 9:30 a.m. All public seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
A ban on the transportation of horses across state borders and into Canada or Mexico for the purposes of slaughter was included in the infrastructure bill that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday morning.
The ban is a priority for a number of Thoroughbred and animal-welfare groups, who have lobbied the federal government for additional restrictions on horse slaughter in recent years. Those groups said in statements on Thursday that the ban was supported by a bi-partisan group of legislators.
The New York Racing Association has filed a response to a lawsuit from trainer Bob Baffert arguing that a court should lift his ban at NYRA’s tracks, contending that the ban is based on voluminous case law and essential to protecting the integrity of the sport.
The New Mexico Horsemen’s Association has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the state’s racing commission and its members have violated the civil rights of its members and several state laws that determine distributions from gambling revenues, according to a copy of the suit.
The suit, filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court of New Mexico, names the commission and its five members as defendants. Under the suit, the horsemen’s group is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
CYPRESS, Calif. - California owner and breeder Nick Alexander and his family had an eventful sporting double in the Los Angeles area on Saturday.
Desmond Doss won the first stakes of his career for Alexander in Saturday’s $100,000 Bertrando Stakes at Los Alamitos for California-bred milers.
Alexander left Los Alamitos shortly after the Bertrando, bound for Dodger Stadium to watch the Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2, on a ninth-inning walk-off home run by Cody Bellinger.
CYPRESS, Calif. - Medina Spirit, the first-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby on May 1 who has not raced since a third in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on May 15, is training daily and is close to a second workout in recent weeks, trainer Bob Baffert said Sunday.
Baffert had previously mentioned the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 17 as an early summer goal for Medina Spirit and said on Sunday that an assessment on the colt’s participation will be made in coming days.
Dr. Michael Galvin, a longtime equine practitioner at Belmont Park, was temporarily barred by Belmont from practicing this week but has been allowed back on the grounds, a spokesman for Belmont’s operator, the New York Racing Association, confirmed Saturday.
Galvin, whose main clients include Rudy Rodriguez, Orlando Noda, and Rob Atras, was barred on Thursday, according to Patrick McKenna, NYRA’s spokesman, who declined to offer details about the reasons behind the decision. McKenna said that Galvin was allowed back at Belmont on Friday.
Gary Wolfson, a part-time Thoroughbred owner who came from a family with deep ties in the game, died on Wednesday in a Brooklyn, N.Y., palliative-care center following a recent diagnosis of cancer, according to family members. Wolfson was 73.
Life Is Good, one of the top-rated 3-year-olds earlier this year, is back in training in Kentucky and will be based with Todd Pletcher in New York this summer, WinStar Farm president Elliott Walden said on Thursday.
The news of Life Is Good being transferred to Pletcher was first reported by Horse Racing Nation.
Life Is Good was previously trained by Bob Baffert, whose stable has come under massive scrutiny after Medina Spirit tested positive for betamethasone following a win in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 1.
