A few months ago, Sam Elliott knew little more about Parx Racing than that it used to be Philadelphia Park. Now, he is the director of racing and racing secretary at the Bensalem, Pa., racino, having replaced Sal Sinatra, who left after a long tenure to become general manager of the Maryland Jockey Club.

Elliott, the vice president of racing at Suffolk Downs since 2008, was put out of work when the track lost its bid for the Boston-area casino license last September and held its final day of racing Oct. 4.

The Maryland Racing Commission has suspended three trainers, including Scott Lake, after horses they trained tested positive for prohibited anabolic steroids, according to commission records.

The horses all tested positive for stanozolol, an anabolic steroid that was once commonly used in Thoroughbred racing before the industry cracked down on steroid use in 2010. The steroid was marketed at that time under the name Winstrol, but it is now only available through compounding pharmacies.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Calculator, the winner of last month’s Sham Stakes at Santa Anita, emerged from a workout at San Luis Rey Downs on Saturday with an injury that will sideline him six months and takes him off the Triple Crown trail, trainer Peter Miller said Sunday.

 Miller declined to reveal the injury. He said Calculator worked well on Saturday under jockey Elvis Trujillo – he went five furlongs in 1:00.40 – but “was off after the work.”

 “We’re hoping for a full recovery, hoping for a fall campaign,” Miller said.

Led by Eclipse Award winners American Pharoah and Take Charge Brandi, along with Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Texas Red, a total of 429 3-year-olds were announced on Saturday by Churchill Downs as the early nominations to this year’s Triple Crown.

January went out like a lion for the New York Racing Association as cold temperatures combined with high winds forced officials to cancel Saturday’s nine-race card at Aqueduct.

Of the 23 cards scheduled for the month of January at Aqueduct, seven were completely canceled, including three of the five Saturday programs, while another was scrapped after two races were run.

Saturday’s card was lost due to temperatures in the low 20s combined with forecasted winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour that made for wind chills in the single digits.

Eighty years ago, Santa Anita Park was in the middle of its inaugural 1934-35 season, the first official race meeting in Southern California in a quarter-century. It consisted of 11 weeks and 65 days, racing every day of the week except Sunday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The upgrade of Woodbine’s Marine Stakes to Grade 3 status was the only change to Canadian graded stakes races for 2015 made by The Jockey Club of Canada’s graded stakes committee. The move means that 44 graded stakes races will be run in Canada this season, up from 43 in 2014.

Leave the Light On, the winner of the Remsen Stakes in his last start, injured a hind ankle in a workout last weekend, needs surgery, and is off the Triple Crown trail, trainer Chad Brown said Thursday.

“He needs a couple of months off,” Brown said from Florida, where Leave the Light On has been training at the Palm Meadows training center. “It’s obviously very disappointing, but the long-term prognosis is good. We’re doing the right thing and stopping now.”

American Pharoah, the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old male of 2014, and Texas Red, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner, were assigned the co-high weight of 126 pounds in the Experimental Free Handicap, a weight-based ranking of the previous year’s 2-year-olds put out annually by The Jockey Club that was released on Thursday.

The Experimental weights are based on a theoretical race at 1 1/16 miles on dirt, the exact conditions of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the FrontRunner Stakes, a race won by American Pharoah. The 126-pound figure is the standard high weight assignment.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Barbados, winner of the Spectacular Bid and Hutcheson stakes this month at Gulfstream Park, will undergo minor knee surgery Tuesday at the Rood and Riddle equine medical center in Kentucky, trainer Mike Tomlinson revealed Wednesday at Gulfstream.

Tomlinson said a non-displaced fracture was discovered on the outer, upper portion of the 3-year-old colt’s left knee and is “in no way career-threatening.”