Racing fans can vote for the “Moment of the Year” at the website of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association starting today, the NTRA announced.
The Moment of the Year is the only racing award that is solely determined by a public vote. The list this year includes 10 candidates, including California Chrome’s Kentucky Derby win and Rosie Napravnik’s announcement on live television that she was retiring, right after she won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Delta Downs, the sister track of Evangeline, will have some schedule changes due to Christmas falling midweek. Delta will race Monday and Tuesday next week, and both cards will start at 1:15 p.m. Central.
Delta races at night, but with no other night simulcasts for those dates, the decision was made to shift to a daytime post, said Warren. Delta will not race Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. First post for Delta’s New Year’s Eve card has been moved up to 5 p.m. Central.
The $300,000 Evangeline Downs Turf Sprint will be run about three weeks earlier next year, on May 30. The five-furlong grass race for 3-year-olds and up was inaugurated this year and was run at the Opelousas, La., track June 21. The earlier date was chosen in part because of its spacing from the Grade 3 Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs the first weekend in May, said Chris Warren, director of racing operations for Evangeline.
“We’ll attract some of those horses, hopefully,” said Warren.
David Wells, a suspended trainer formerly based at Penn National who was indicted late in 2013, pleaded guilty Tuesday in a county court to one count of rigging a publicly exhibited contest as part of a deal with federal prosecutors.
The count carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail under Pennsylvania law. Wells is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 29.
Horsemen in south Florida are scrambling for stall space in the wake of the realization that Churchill Downs Inc. plans to go forward with the development of a portion of the backside at Calder Race Course, displacing approximately 700 horses as of the start of the new year.
The stewards at Charles Town are implementing new procedures for the track’s Wednesday race card following an accident Saturday night in which a loose horse running the wrong way on the track collided with another horse, leading to a horse’s death, without an available warning system being activated.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – For the first time since the Village at Gulfstream Park opened adjacent to the racetrack five years ago, wagering will become available inside the mall with the opening of Frankey’s Sports Bar on Tuesday night.
Frankey’s was designed and is owned by track owner Frank Stronach and is the first of the three establishments he’ll operate at the mall, along with Adena Springs Steakhouse and a gourmet market.
Trainer David Cannizzo will begin 2015 by serving a 45-day suspension after three of his horses tested positive for the illegal substance Propoxyphene, a painkiller also known as Darvon.
Cannizzo was actually suspended for 75 days but had 30 days stayed provided he does not incur another equine drug positive before Feb. 14, 2016. Darvon is a class 3 drug, according to the Association of Racing Commissioners International.
The American Quarter Horse Association announced Friday that the bronchodilator clenbuterol will be banned for use in Quarter Horse racing beginning in 2016 and that stricter penalties will be enacted in 2015 for owners and trainers who have horses test positive for the medication under the rules of individual states.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There have been six racing fatalities through the first seven days of the Aqueduct inner-track meet, bringing back haunting memories of the 2011-12 season, when there were 21 fatalities in a four-month span.