Contest action returns to DRFBets on Saturday with a new format. The top two finishers will both receive their seats to the National Handicapping Championship, to be held in January at Treasure Island in Las Vegas. A purse in excess of $2.5 million is expected at the NHC.
“We’re very excited to host another NHC tournament on DRF Bets,” said contest director Jordan Goldberg. “We love the idea of one of our customers winning big money at the world’s most prestigious handicapping tournament.”
Trainer Graham Motion has been suspended five days and fined $500 by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission after one of his horses who won a stakes races last April at Keeneland tested positive for a prohibited level of a regulated muscle relaxant, according to a commission ruing posted on Saturday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- A squabble between Kentucky Downs and Churchill Downs over September race dates has erupted for the second straight year, with Kentucky regulators asking the tracks to work out their differences or have the issue settled for them.
An equine herpesvirus quarantine at Parx Racing will remain in place until Oct. 29, provided no other horses test positive for the disease.
Horses are allowed to ship into Parx to race, according to Sam Elliott, director of racing, but they will not be able to leave the grounds during the quarantine, which is being overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Trainer Julio Canani, who has won three Breeders’ Cup races in his career, has been suspended for at least 13 months by Santa Anita stewards for his role in a 2012 civil court decision in which a jury found him liable for fraud in the sale of California-based horses owned by Jeff Nielsen in 2008.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Talco, the winner of the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita in June, will miss the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Keeneland on Oct. 31 after being diagnosed with a bone chip in a knee, trainer John Sadler said on Saturday.
Talco is scheduled to undergo surgery in the coming days to have the bone chip removed. Sadler said Talco is expected to resume training in the coming months for a 2016 campaign.
“The prognosis is good,” he said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – American Pharoah, the Triple Crown winner, worked five furlongs in 59.80 seconds on Saturday at Santa Anita and now will remain there in preparation for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland rather than travel on Monday to Churchill Downs, a plan trainer Bob Baffert had been contemplating.
Basically, Baffert wants to leave well enough alone.
A 2-year-old filly at Parx Racing has tested positive for the equine herpesvirus, resulting in a quarantine of the stable area.
Horses are allowed to ship into Parx to race, according to Sam Elliott, director of racing, but they will not be able to leave the grounds during the quarantine. The quarantine is expected to last four weeks, according to Elliott.
Howard Bender, a longtime owner and breeder in Maryland, died Monday at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He was 84.
Bender was a longtime member of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association board of directors. He and his late wife, Sondra, who died in 2012, had been involved in Maryland racing since 1983 and had been honored by the Maryland Horse Breeders Association in 2001, 2002, and 2003 as Breeders of the Year. The Benders won more than 500 races and more than $14 million in purses.
