ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Robert Geller has been hired as Woodbine’s new race-caller, replacing the popular Dan Loiselle, who is retiring May 31.
Geller, a 55-year-old native of Birmingham, England, has been the track announcer at Emerald Downs since it opened in 1996. He also has called races at Sunland Park and at tracks in Hong Kong and Australia, where he grew up. He will continue to work at Sunland in New Mexico.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Del Mar will seek approval from the California Horse Racing Board in the coming weeks to change the format of the pick six for the summer meeting, eliminating a consolation payoff and dedicating that portion of the pool to be distributed to a single ticketholder.
The proposal is similar to pick six bets currently conducted at Gulfstream Park and Golden Gate Fields, but with an emphasis on paying a majority of the pool to bettors with six winners each day.
Kentucky-based jockey Jon Court will be presented with the Mike Venezia Memorial Award on Monday at Belmont Park, the New York Racing Association announced Thursday.
The Venezia Award, voted on by the fans, is awarded to a jockey who exemplifies extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship. It is named in honor of Mike Venezia, who died as a result of injuries suffered in a spill in 1988 at Belmont Park. Previous winners of the Venezia Award include Bill Shoemaker, Angel Cordero Jr., Jerry Bailey, Mike Smith, Gary Stevens, Richard Migliore, and Ramon Dominguez.
Ahmed Zayat, the owner of Triple Crown candidate American Pharoah, has denied charges contained in a lawsuit accusing him of reneging on a gambling debt from 2004.
The suit was filed in March 2014 in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey by Howard Rubinsky, who claims that Zayat owes him $1,650,000 “with interest accrued thereon” from a line of credit Rubinsky opened for Zayat at an offshore bookmaker. In the suit, Rubinsky states that the original debt was $2 million, and that Zayat stopped making payments to pay down the debt in 2008.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner American Pharoah began his bid toward the June 6 Belmont Stakes with a once-around jog Thursday morning at Churchill Downs, a routine bit of exercise that took a mere seven minutes to complete.
“I saw what I needed to see,” said Jim Barnes, assistant to trainer Bob Baffert.
Daily Racing Form has added a new notation to its past-performance lines indicating when a claim for a horse was voided, a more frequent occurrence over the past several years due to new rules in some jurisdictions.
In the event of a voided claim, a lower-case “v” followed by a dash will precede the claiming price in the conditions for the race in the running line. For example, if the claim was voided in a $25,000 race for 4-years-old and up, the condition would read, “4↑ Clm v-25000.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – Mubtaahij has been in New York for less than a week, but he’s already gotten a lot done as he prepares for the June 6 Belmont Stakes.
On Sunday, Mubtaahij worked five furlongs in company on the Belmont turf course, timed in 1:01.11. On Wednesday, the Irish-bred colt, who finished eighth in the Kentucky Derby, went out for a spin over Belmont’s main track, working a sharp three-furlongs in 36.02 seconds. He galloped out four furlongs in 47.88 seconds and pulled up five-eighths in 1:02.94.
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and John Hay Whitney, two owners and breeders whose impact on racing stretched into the sport’s corporate suites, will be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame as the two latest “Pillars of the Turf” inductees, the Hall of Fame announced on Wednesday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – He did it again – and one day, he hopes, he will take it a little farther.
Trainer Dallas Stewart sent out yet another longshot to blow up the gimmicks in a Triple Crown event when Tale of Verve closed steadily to be second at 28-1 in the 140th Preakness on Saturday at Pimlico.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association is coordinating with account-wagering companies and racing organizations with large mailing lists to drum up support for proposed changes to tax laws affecting withholding on pari-mutuel winnings, NTRA officials said Wednesday.
