The star-crossed breeding career of three-time Eclipse Award winner Royal Delta came to a tragic end this week, when the mare died due to foaling complications in Ireland. Her Galileo filly survived.

This was the first foal for Royal Delta, 9, who was retired in November 2013. She was exported to Ireland, where she was boarded at Coolmore, which stands the globally prominent sire Galileo. She did not get in foal to that stallion in 2014; the following year, she aborted the foal. She was bred in 2016, resulting in this filly.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Mark Casse reported on Thursday that 2016 2-year-old male champion Classic Empire is doing well after popping an abscess in his foot. The abscess was discovered less than 48 hours after his third-place finish as the heavy favorite in last Saturday’s Grade 2 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

“The good news is I’ve seen these foot abscesses last a long time, but if all goes well he’ll go back to the track to train on Friday,” said Casse.

The horse identifier at Delta Downs in Louisiana has been suspended, and the Louisiana Racing Commission is conducting an investigation into the possibility that two horses have made starts in the state under swapped identities, the top official of the commission confirmed on Wednesday.

The forecast for a winter storm that could bring six to 10 inches of snow to the New York City area prompted the New York Racing Association to cancel Thursday’s eight-race program at Aqueduct.

NYRA announced the cancellation on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, NYRA officials announced that Aqueduct would not be open for simulcasting as originally planned.The storm knocked out power for a little while early Thursday morning as the racing office tried to take entries for Sunday's card.

The Grade 2 Wood Memorial, New York’s last major prep for the Kentucky Derby, and the Ogden Phipps Stakes, a Grade 1 event for older fillies and mares that continually drew short fields, have had their purses cut by $250,000 each, it was announced Wednesday as the New York Racing Association released its stakes schedules for the Aqueduct and Belmont Park spring meetings. Both races will be worth $750,000.

Thoroughbred owner Vincent Viola, President Donald Trump's pick to serve as secretary of the Army, has withdrawn himself from consideration for the role.

Garrett Gomez, the retired rider with 13 Breeders’ Cup victories, died in December of an overdose of methamphetamines, the chief medical examiner of Pima County, Ariz., said on Thursday. Dr. Gregory Hess said toxicology tests confirmed that Gomez died of “methamphetamine intoxication,” or an overdose of the drug.

“Everyone from Day 1 was kind of suspecting that that was the case, and so it was just a matter of running the toxicology tests to determine the drug,” Hess said.

Two prominent North American speed-figure makers have altered the initial figures given to performers in Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park because they believe the official timing of the race is approximately a second too slow, the figure makers said Tuesday.

Clyde Rice, a groundbreaking horseman in the field of pinhooking and the pivot point for a large racing family tree, including prominent trainer Linda Rice, died Monday at his home in Anthony, Fla. He was 79.

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – On a typical Monday in late January, the Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott would be in Florida, readying a large string of horses based at the Payson Park training center in Indiantown for upcoming races.

On the last Monday of January this year, Mott was in a conference room at the offices of the New York State Gaming Commission in upstate New York listening to testimony – and prepared to testify himself – in a case that goes back more than two years.