Nancy Polk, who got into racing and breeding late in life when buying Normandy Farm in Lexington, Ky., in the late 1990s, died Saturday morning of pneumonia in a Lexington hospital, just hours before her homebred filly, Daddys Lil Darling, finished fourth in the Grade 1 Beverly D. at Arlington Park.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Popular track announcer Dan Loiselle, breeder John G. Sikura, and trainer Reade Baker were among the 2018 inductees into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Mississauga Convention Center on Wednesday night.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey looked out at the audience and recalled, with clarity and detail, the fairly ordinary afternoon of Sept. 15, 1993 at Belmont Park, when a maiden special weight for 2-year-old fillies was split into two divisions. A pair of homebreds, one owned by Ogden Phipps and one by his son Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps, won the two divisions by a combined 16 1/2 lengths.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Longtime Ontario trainer Conrad Belaire died from a heart ailment on Tuesday while just shy of his 84^th birthday.

Since 1977, Belaire had won 368 races from 3,186 starters and had earnings of just over $4 million. He sent out Run Lady Run to win the Shady Well Stakes for 2-year-old fillies in 1990.

In recent years, Belaire trained for former trainer Mort Hardy, who died earlier this year.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Their careers overlapped, highlighted by a remarkable tag-team approach in 1995, and now, 10 years after the mare Inside Information was voted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, stablemate Heavenly Prize will be enshrined, too, during ceremonies on Friday at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., just around the corner from the Hall of Fame itself.

DEL MAR, Calif. -- Lava Man, a popular gelding who went into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2015 following a career in which he was a three-time winner of the Hollywood Gold Cup and then became a stable pony at the barn of his trainer Doug O'Neill, "underwent colic surgery to correct a large colon displacement" on Tuesday but was back in his stall at a local clinic and beginning the recovery process, O'Neill reported via Twitter on Tuesday night.

In a text message at approximately 6:30 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday, O'Neill said, "All good as we speak."

It’s not just the Dubai World Cup program getting a purse raise for 2019, but the entire Dubai World Cup Carnival.

Total purse money to be distributed during the 2019 carnival is $12,670,000, a 12-percent increase over 2018. Purses are to be raised at all levels during the Carnival, which spans 10 weeks between Jan. 3 and March 9 and includes nine Thursday cards before the final meeting, Super Saturday, leads into the World Cup program.

All three rounds of the Maktoum Challenge got considerable purse hikes with Round 3, a Group 1, now worth a rich $600,000.

The nine 3-year-olds entered Monday for Saturday’s Grade 3, $500,000 West Virginia Derby have some substance and intrigue to them.

From the rail out, with riders, the West Virginia Derby field includes Lionite (David Cabrera), Draft Pick (Joe Talamo), Caloric (Ricardo Mejias), King Cause (Julien Leparoux), Once On Whiskey (Flavien Prat), Rugbyman (Jorge Vargas), Pamir (Luis Quinones), Mr Freeze (Robby Albarado), and High North (Florent Geroux).

DEL MAR, Calif. - Justify, the Triple Crown winner, received a nice cheer from the fans at Del Mar on Saturday after laudatory remarks from track announcer Trevor Denman during a brief retirement ceremony following the day's fourth race.

As expected, undefeated Triple Crown winner Justify’s meteoric career has officially concluded, with his connections announcing his retirement on Wednesday.