Mahoning Valley Race Course in Austintown, Ohio, has added a six-furlong, $75,000 stakes race for 3-year-old fillies to its stakes schedule. The Austintown Filly Sprint will be run Saturday, April 18.

“With the overall improvement of the racing quality in Ohio and surrounding racing jurisdictions, we felt this event will offer horsemen an appealing opportunity for some of the up-and-coming young fillies in training in the Midwest,” Mahoning Valley racing secretary Ed Vomacka said in a statement.

Nominations for the race will close April 8.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Take Charge Brandi will miss both the Grade 2, $750,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Saturday and the Kentucky Oaks after the champion 2-year-old filly of 2014 was diagnosed with a non-displaced bone chip in her right knee, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said on Tuesday.

The defection means there will be no historical matchup of last year’s 2-year-old champions in the Rebel, which remains the target for American Pharoah, the champion 2-year-old male of 2014.

Ahmed Zayat said he wouldn’t run more than one horse in the Kentucky Derby just because he could. So even as El Kabeir was winning races and racking up points to qualify for the world’s most famous horse race, Zayat was not necessarily viewing the colt as a Derby horse.

Laurel Park has canceled its Sunday card as the track maintenance crew continues to work on the racing surface following last Thursday’s storm. Laurel received approximately eight inches of snow.

“We’re still trying to get the moisture out of the track and get it back to a consistent, safe surface,” Sal Sinatra, general manager of the Maryland Jockey Club, said Sunday morning.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Todd Pletcher confirmed Friday that the undefeated Khozan is off the Kentucky Derby trail after coming back from a routine gallop at Palm Beach Downs that morning off in his right hind ankle.

"We've sent him to Rood & Riddle. I'm waiting for Dr. [Larry] Bramlage's opinion on Monday," said Pletcher.

A Texas Racing Commission official has increased a fine assessed to jockey Roman Chapa for allegedly using an electrical device from $25,000 to $100,000, according to documents provided by the commission. The case concerns the Richard King Stakes, run at Sam Houston Race Park on Jan. 17. 

Three separate inquiries at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 21, including one resulting in the disqualification of the favorite in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, immediately raised the hackles of bettors, racing fans, and trainers, who collectively rallied around one point: consistency.

To many critics of one or more of the stewards’ decisions that day, it wasn’t that the stewards made one particularly egregious call. It was that the stewards, in the critics’ opinions, did not apply the same criteria to each of the incidents.

Revenue from Television Games Network was up 17 percent in the third quarter of fiscal year 2015 compared with the same quarter last year, according to TVG’s parent company, Betfair.

Although Betfair did not disclose an exact revenue figure for TVG, the company said that total revenue from its U.S. operations, which includes an online casino in New Jersey, was $20.5 million in the third quarter, compared with $15.8 million in last year’s third quarter, an increase of 30 percent.

Ocean Knight
Colt by Curlin–Ocean Goddess, by Stormy Atlantic
(Bred in Kentucky by Thor-Bred Stables; $320,000 purchase by Stonestreet Stables at 2014 OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training)

Ocean Knight changed course this week to point for Saturday’s Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby. The colt posted a victory in the local prep, the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes in January, successfully stretching out to 1 1/16 miles to remain unbeaten in two starts.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – There will be no live racing at Oaklawn Park on Thursday, according to track spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyt, after a winter storm moved into the area overnight. The cancellation is the seventh of the meet, with all of the programs lost due to freezing temperatures.

Oaklawn was forced to cancel cards last Friday and Saturday. The track also lost opening weekend Jan. 9-11 and its popular Presidents Day card Feb. 16.