Bill Thayer, a longtime racing executive, mainly at Arlington Park, and generally a well known figure throughout the American racing industry, died Tuesday in Rolling Meadows, Ill. Thayer was 89.

Born in Santa Fe, N.M., Thayer grew up an orphan but graduated from Creighton College in Omaha, Neb. He got interested in racing before leaving college, and began working in the sport shortly after graduation, catching on as a jockey’s agent.

An employee of the racing office at Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Penn., has agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud for accepting “money and other gratuities” from horsemen in exchange for information on the identities of horses that were entered in specific races, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced on Wednesday.

A week after the Rodeo Drive at Santa Anita shed light on some of the top U.S. contenders for the Oct. 31 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, this Saturday’s Grade 1 Flower Bowl Invitational at Belmont Park is expected to do the same – albeit under vastly different turf conditions.

Unlike the Rodeo Drive, which was run in hot weather and on a firm course, the Flower Bowl likely will be contested on yielding or soft ground, with heavy rain expected in New York leading up to Saturday’s race.

With the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile just four weeks from Friday, the only remaining major stepping-stone to the $1 million race is Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park.

The one-mile Kelso will be headed by Honor Code, who despite earning a fees-paid berth to the Dirt Mile by winning the Met Mile, is most likely headed to the Classic.

CHICAGO – Arlington and Hawthorne’s proposal to coordinate racing schedules and amicably divide revenue from hosting simulcasts on dark days in 2016 was unanimously approved by the Illinois Racing Board in the IRB’s annual racing dates awards meeting Tuesday in Chicago.

Ben Cambra, a longtime racing executive, has been hired by Daily Racing Form as the company’s new senior vice president of business development and sponsorships, the company announced.

Cambra, who has four decades of experience working in horseracing, will oversee Daily Racing Form’s sales and marketing operations while also being responsible for syndication of the company’s content and reaching partnerships with industry organizations, Daily Racing Form said.

New York lawmakers should examine the statutory requirements imposed on the state’s five offtrack betting corporations with the intent of shoring up their deteriorating financial condition, according to the recommendations of an audit by the New York state comptroller’s office examining the OTBs’ operations over the past five years.

Gulfstream Park will add a super high five wager to every race when it opens its Gulfstream Park West meet Oct. 7 at the Calder Race Course property in Miami, with the bet carrying over to the next race if no one correctly selects the first five finishers, the track announced.

The addition of the super-exotic bet to every race at the meet is a significant expansion of the availability of the wager. Previously, Gulfstream Park had only offered the super high five on the last race of the card. The minimum for the bet will be $1, and the takeout will be 15 percent.

The Breeders’ Cup will reduce the minimum for the two pick six wagers scheduled for its Oct. 30 and Oct. 31 cards at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., from $2 to $1, according to officials who have seen the simulcast contracts the organization has sent out to wagering sites.

The reduction in the minimum for the bet is the first since 1994, when the Breeders’ Cup reduced the minimum to $1 for a three-year span running through 1996. Handle on the bet dropped considerably during the three-year period, and handle immediately rebounded when the minimum was increased to $2 in 1997.

More than three decades into Breeders’ Cup history, one doesn’t hear as often about how the Breeders’ Cup, for all the anticipation it generates, has changed the fall-racing landscape from coast to coast, turning major stakes in New York, California, and Kentucky that once were season-ending goals into stepping-stones toward Breeders’ Cup races.

The Breeders’ Cup has the purses and the prestige. Its races aren’t the “championship” events the organization tries to call them, but they’re championship-making.