HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -  Art Sherman stood quietly back at the barn, a look of both disappointment and incredulity on his face, still trying to pinpoint a reason for California Chrome’s lackluster performance only minutes earlier in the $12 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park. And within short order he may have found the answer, some fluid in California Chrome’s right knee. Nothing major, but surely enough to prevent the four-time champion from performing his best in the final race of his remarkable career.

Bill Mooney, a two-time Eclipse Award-winning turf writer, died Saturday in his Lexington, Ky., home after a long battle with renal cell carcinoma. He was 69.

Born in New England to a circus executive father and an aerialist mother, Mooney was introduced to horse racing at age 7 while visiting the Great Barrington Fair in Massachusetts. His interest developed into a passion at age 15 during a six-week hospital stay following a car accident, when an orderly tutored him on the sport’s intricacies.

Tests conducted at Keeneland on horses in two quarantined barns there have shown four additional horses testing positive for the wild-type strain of the equine herpesvirus (EHV-1), according to Rusty Ford, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture equine programs manager.

These latest results follow positive tests at both Turfway Park and Keeneland for the wild-type strain of the virus – a far less dangerous strain than the neuropathic strain, which was found in a sick horse at Highpointe Training Center in Oldham County, Ky., earlier this month.

Bob “Country” Roberts, who was a prominent Thoroughbred owner in the 1990s with his wife, Bea, has died in Las Vegas following an illness, according to friends. He was 79.

Based in Kentucky, Country and Bea Roberts owned a sizable stable that employed Gary Hartlage, Stanley Hough, and Steve Margolis as trainers before dispersing most of their equine holdings in 1999 and 2000 and moving to Las Vegas in 2002.

Classic Empire won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, was named the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old male of 2016, and on Tuesday headed a robust list of 418 3-year-olds who were announced as early nominees to this year’s Triple Crown.

There were 368 horses nominated at this stage a year ago, so this year’s total is a significant bump from 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 2014 foal crop was estimated at 22,300.

The connections of Grade 1 winner Gun Runner on Monday submitted an entry for the horse in the $12 million Pegasus World Cup, but the entry was rejected by Gulfstream Park officials, a representative of the connections said.

Winners for the 2016 Eclipse Awards, selected by voters from Daily Racing Form, the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters, and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. Click on a winner to read DRF's profile. Winners were announced Jan.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The Sunshine State became the Golden State on Saturday night at the 46th annual Eclipse Awards dinner, as California Chrome made off with the golden statuette as Horse of the Year for the second time and led a parade of California-based connections who won divisional titles.

California Chrome outpolled Arrogate for Horse of the Year, 202 to 40. Songbird received five votes and Highland Reel one.

Gulfstream Park racing officials began mobilizing Friday to assess the risks of allowing Gun Runner to travel from Fair Grounds in New Orleans to Gulfstream to compete in the Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 28, seven days after a quarantine of the Fair Grounds backstretch was expected to be lifted.