Led by the likes of Eclipse Award winner Good Magic, fellow Eclipse finalists Bolt d’Oro and Solomini, and the unbeaten McKinzie, a total of 360 3-year-olds were announced on Thursday as early nominees to this year’s Triple Crown.

That number is a decline from last year, when 419 were nominated at the early stage, but is similar to the 368 nominated at this stage in 2016. There were 429 nominated at the early stage in 2015. The record is 450 in 2007, which followed a huge foal crop of 37,948 in 2004. The 2015 foal crop is estimated at 22,500.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A wire-to-wire victory by the 35-1 Forest Gator provided a shocking ending to a record-setting Rainbow 6 on Sunday at Gulfstream Park that returned $15,566.10 for those who selected all six winners in the sequence. 

Total handle on Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla., including all horizontal wagers ending in the race, was $16.4 million, up 3.8 percent compared with wagering of $15.8 million last year on the inaugural Pegasus, according to charts of the races compiled by Equibase.

Fair Grounds Racecourse cancelled the last seven races on its Saturday program after heavy rain hit the New Orleans track.

The racing surface already was sloppy and turf racing abandoned when another band of strong rain passed through the area before the running of the third race. That race was delayed and eventually run, but shortly thereafter a halt was called to the program.

This was the second cancellation in 10 days. The card on Jan. 18 was called off because of a hard freeze in New Orleans. Racing resumes Sunday with first post at 1 p.m. Central.
 

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – On a night that celebrated the best achievements in racing on the track, it was the reflection on life-changing events off the track that provided the most poignant moments at the 47th annual Eclipse Awards dinner at Gulfstream Park on Thursday.

Turfway Park’s most prestigious race, its annual spring prep for the Kentucky Derby, will have a new sponsor for the next three years, Jeff Ruby Steaks, and yes, you will have to forgive the pun.

The race formerly known as the Spiral Stakes and the Jim Beam Stakes will be now known as the Jeff Ruby Steaks, running through 2020, according to Turfway Park and the company that owns Jeff Ruby Steakhouses. The race is scheduled this year for March 17, with a purse of $200,000.

Two graded stakes-winning turf mares campaigned by Juddmonte Farms have been retired following their 2017 racing seasons, but a third races on in 2018, according to Teddy Grimthorpe, Juddmonte’s worldwide racing manager.

Antonoe, who won the Grade 1 Just a Game on the Belmont Stakes card last June, and multiple graded stakes winner Suffused are retired to broodmare duty. Grand Jete, who won the Grade 3 Eatontown and was Grade 1-placed last season, will race again this year, Grimthorpe said while attending the Longines World’s Best Racehorse awards Tuesday in London.

Bolt d’Oro, the losing favorite in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and Good Magic, the winner of that race, have been assigned highweight of 126 pounds in the The Jockey Club’s Annual Top 2-Year-Old Rankings for 2017.

The ranking, which would be more familiar to racing fans as the Experimental Free Handicap, is an annual assessment of the previous year’s top colts and fillies, using an assigned handicap weight for a theoretical race at 1 1/16 miles on the dirt. In previous years, 126 pounds has been considered the standard for the highest assignment for a colt.

In an attempt to increase field size at its 2018 meet, Monmouth Park will offer starter bonuses to owners and trainers.

In non-statebred races, owners will be guaranteed to earn a minimum of $500 per starter and trainers will receive $300 per starter. The bonuses do not apply to stakes.

Monmouth also will continue to offer free workers' compensation insurance for employees of trainers stabled at Monmouth. The blanket policy will be provided by the New Jersey Injury Compensation Board.