The owners and/or trainers of 36 horses scheduled to run in Breeders’ Cup races on Friday and Saturday have pledged a portion of their purse earnings over the two-day event to the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program, the nonprofit organization announced Thursday.

This is the sixth year that New Vocations, which operates six farms in four states in the Midwest, has asked owners and trainers of Breeders’ Cup horses for pledges. In the previous five years, a total of $220,000 has been raised for the organization, New Vocations said.

ARCADIA, Ca. – Aktabantay is out of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf after suffering a foot injury, trainer Hugo Palmer announced.

“Having moved beautifully this morning, Aktabantay was found to have a sore foot back at the barn. He has been scratched,” Palmer posted on his Twitter feed late Thursday morning.

:: BREEDERS’ CUP 2014: Post positions, comments, and odds

It was a sight for sore eyes. California Chrome was putting on a show Tuesday in the Santa Anita saddling barn, up on his hind legs, manhood on display, giving Alan Sherman fits on the ground and Willie Delgado all he could handle at the wheel.

“The reins were in my lap,” said Delgado, the man with the slick red chaps. “I had ahold of mane with one hand and used the other to push him away from the partition. Did I have him? Sure, I had him, just like he had me.”

ELMONT, N.Y. – “So, what are you planning to do? You going back?”

The questions, posed to him by his wife, Leona, caught John Velazquez by surprise. They came last November, a few weeks after Velazquez was seriously injured in a spill at Santa Anita early on Breeders’ Cup Saturday. Among other issues, Velazquez had to undergo surgery to remove his spleen.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Anyone who dreams of a life-changing journey to the races has an idol in Breeders’ Cup trainer Conor Murphy.

Murphy, who starts Dimension in Saturday’s $1 million BC Turf Sprint at Santa Anita, is proof that anything is possible in the world of race betting.

The Breeders’ Cup will be televised on NBC’s networks through 2025 under a 10-year extension to a current agreement, the companies announced Thursday.

The agreement will require NBC and a sister network, NBCSN, to provide eight hours of live coverage of the Breeders’ Cup each year, the announcement said. It includes prime-time coverage of the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 2016 and 2017, when the host tracks are Santa Anita and Del Mar, according to a release from the companies.

A researcher at Colorado State University who has collaborated on influential research on the anti-bleeding medication furosemide has released the results of three new studies claiming that bleeding is detrimental to performance but that moderate forms of the condition do not have appear to have a negative impact on a horse’s ability to earn purse money.

Owners of horses in next year’s Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks will each be provided a complimentary suite at Churchill Downs as part of a $4.2 million project to construct 20 open-air boxes on the grandstand apron, the track announced Wednesday.

The construction of the suites will allow Churchill to address complaints this year about substandard treatment of owners at the Derby and Oaks. Previously, Churchill had provided each owner with six complimentary tickets to a box on the third floor and access to a common food and beverage area.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The Breeders’ Cup never is far from Mike Smith’s mind.

The Hall of Fame jockey seldom encounters a group of racing fans without someone mentioning his win on the famous mare Zenyatta in the 2009 BC Classic at Santa Anita.

“It’s just kind of out there,” Smith said on a recent morning between workouts at Santa Anita.

Of Smith’s record 20 wins in Breeders’ Cup races, Zenyatta’s victory stands out, even five years later.

“It seems to be extra special because it was here,” he said.

This year, the Breeders’ Cup designated 45 races in the United States and Canada as Win and You’re In races, awarding the winner an automatic starting berth in a designated Breeders’ Cup race while waiving the race’s entry fees. Another 26 races in overseas locations drew the same designation.

Of the winners of the 45 Breeders’ Cup Challenge races in the U.S. and Canada, 35 were entered in Breeders’ Cup races. Of the 26 overseas races, only three winners were pre-entered, and two of the three were from South America.