The American Graded Stakes Committee has assigned grades to 463 races scheduled to be run in 2015, eight more than it assigned to 2014 races, even though the number of races held in the U.S. is declining.

The 2015 schedule will not include any new Grade 1 races, and no current Grade 1 races were downgraded to Grade 2, according to the committee. The committee annually reviews all races that qualify for graded stakes in the U.S. and determines the grades based on the quality of the fields that have run in the races over the past several years.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -    P.J. Campo, vice president of racing for the Stronach Group, will assume duties of general manager at Gulfstream Park, effective immediately, track officials announced on Friday.

Campo joined the Stronach Group in November 2013 and helped in establishing a successful summer-fall racing program at Gulfstream Park West. He also worked closely with Gulfstream president Tim Ritvo on several other projects to enhance both the racing product and guest experience at Gulfstream Park over the past year.

The Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland Racecourse will be moved to a date four weeks prior to the Kentucky Derby and its purse will be raised to $1 million for the 2015 running, the track announced late on Friday.

The New York Racing Association has placed an indefinite ban on horses based at Finger Lakes from shipping to Aqueduct or Belmont Park after a case of strangles, a highly contagious though not typically fatal respiratory illness, was confirmed at Finger Lakes late Wednesday afternoon.

For the immediate future, that will prevent Smitten by Gold from shipping to Aqueduct for Friday’s $65,000 allowance feature. Trainer Michael Ferraro confirmed Thursday he would have to scratch his mare from that race.

Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M., experienced double-digit gains in handle during its 56-date mixed meet for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses that closed on Tuesday.

Zia handled an average $536,316 a day on its live races from all sources this meet, up 23 percent from $435,229 during the corresponding season in 2013. The average was a track record. Of the total handle amount, an average $44,691 was bet on-track, up 4.7 percent, and another $491,625 bet off-track, an increase of 25 percent over 2013.

A simulcasting cooperative and the company that holds the rights to signals from a dozen tracks, including Gulfstream Park, have been unable so far to reach a resolution to a dispute that has shut off signals at simulcasting sites in a handful of states, officials for both sides said on Wednesday.

The dispute is taking on a greater sense of urgency as opening day at Gulfstream approaches on Saturday. The Gulfstream signal is one of the most popular winter simulcasts in the United States, especially on the East Coast, where many of the affected sites are located.

Sam Lato Sr., a steward for 25 years, died Monday in Houston, according to family members. He was 71. Lato had been battling cancer for more than two years, but continued to work as a steward at Delta Downs in Vinton, La., until June. 

Lato was a native of Wheeling, W. Va. He spent his entire career in racing, working as a valet, a jockey  agent and eventually becoming a steward in 1990.

“He grew up in it,” said Helen Lato, his wife of 52 years.

“It was just in his blood,” said daughter Kim Pomposelli. 

Coming off a Belmont fall meet for which handle was down $32.1 million from last year, the New York Racing Association experienced another down meet business-wise at Aqueduct, where all-sources handle was down $26.1 million from last fall.

According to numbers compiled by Daily Racing Form , all-sources handle for the 26-day fall meet (Oct. 29-Nov. 30) was $158,551,796, a 14.1 percent decrease from last year’s total of $184,654,040. There also were 26 racing days during last fall, though that meet ran Nov. 1-Dec. 8 before racing switched to the inner track Dec. 11.

NEW YORK – As the New York Racing Association moves forward with plans toward re-privatization by the fall of 2015, it will do so without David Skorton, who announced Wednesday he is resigning as chairman of the Reorganization Board at the end of December.

Skorton’s resignation was expected at some point before the end of his term, as last March, he was named the next secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum and research complex. He begins in that role next July.

Santa Anita Winter 2014-15

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