Robert P. Lake, who trained horses for five decades before retiring in 1991, died Wednesday at a hospital in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., due to complications from pneumonia. He was 82.

Lake won his first race July 7, 1950, at Tanforan Racetrack in California, according to his son, Robert Lake Jr. Overall, Lake won 992 races, his son said, with Bravely Bold being his most accomplished runner, having won four stakes, including the Grade 3 Toboggan and Grade 3 Coaltown Breeders’ Cup, both at Aqueduct in 1991.

Charles Town has canceled its Thursday night card in advance of an approaching winter storm. The West Virginia track will race Wednesday night as planned, however.

The storm is expected to produce significant snowfall as well as single-digit wind chills on Thursday. As of Wednesday afternoon, Charles Town was planning to offer simulcast wagering on Thursday.

Racing is scheduled to resume Friday evening. First post is 7:05 p.m.

Carpe Diem and Daredevil, both scheduled to make their 3-year-old debuts Saturday, give WinStar Farm – which has an ownership interest in both – at least two strong Kentucky Derby prospects. Both were Grade 1 winners at 2, and both have been working sharply at Palm Beach Downs for trainer Todd Pletcher ahead of their comeback races.

Wagering on U.S. races in February dropped 3.7 percent compared with the same month last year, while the number of races held at U.S. tracks dropped a similar amount, 3 percent, according to figures released Wednesday by Equibase.

Wagering during the month dropped from $792.4 million to $763.4 million, according to Equibase. With the decline in races factored in, wagering per race in the month dropped 0.7 percent, from $328,837 to $326,099.

There were the same number of weekend dates in February of 2015 and 2014. Wagering is sharply higher on weekends than on weekdays.

WHO’S HOT

Representatives of the Jockeys’ Guild met on Tuesday with riders at Parx racetrack to stress that the jockeys should not sign a waiver sought by the track’s management as a condition of being covered for accident insurance, according to Guild officials.

Glen Hill Farm and trainer Tom Proctor soon will have a year-round presence on the East Coast while altering the scope of their sizable operation.

Glen Hill has agreed to lease the Fair Hill Training Center barn occupied in recent years by Team Valor International and will have horses in most of the 42 stalls at the northern Maryland training facility, with Proctor filling the remainder with horses for other clients. The new arrangement takes effect April 1.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The California handicap division in the mid-1990s belonged to trainer Richard Mandella and his squad of South American imports – Gentlemen, Malek, Sandpit, and Siphon.

Combined, they won 24 stakes in the United States from 1994-99, including a staggering 10 Grade 1 races. Those figures could have been higher if they were not beating each other at times. Siphon, Sandpit, and Gentlemen were the first three finishers in the 1997 Santa Anita Handicap. Less than four months later, Gentlemen, Siphon, and Sandpit swept the top three spots in the Hollywood Gold Cup.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita has shown growth in all-sources handle and attendance well past the halfway point of the winter-spring meeting.

Through Saturday, the 39th day of the 68-day meeting, track officials said all-sources handle had risen 6 percent compared with a similar period at the 2013-14 meeting, but ontrack handle is down less than 1 percent. Attendance has risen 6 percent.

The meeting began Dec. 26 and continues through April 19. The track’s spring-summer meeting begins April 25 and runs until June 28.

Jockeys at Parx racetrack near Philadelphia have been told that they will not be covered by the track’s new insurance policy as of March 19 if the riders do not sign an indemnity waiver acknowledging the risks of riding horses at the track, according to riders and copies of the letters distributed to the jockeys.