WHO’S HOT

Horseplayers on a budget will be happy to learn that the minimum bet has been lowered from 50 cents to a dime for the Pimlico Players Jackpot Pick 5. The revised version of the exotic wager debuts Thursday, when Pimlico launches its 35-day spring meet.

From opening day through May 3, any bettor with a unique 10-cent winning ticket on the Pimlico Pick 5 will receive a minimum of $50,000, plus a trip for two to the 2014 Preakness with seats in the Turfside Terrace section. As a 50-cent wager, the most recent Jackpot  5 at Laurel Park paid $87,835 on March 13.

Television Games Network has reached an agreement that will allow its customers to bet into commingled pools on races in Hong Kong beginning this weekend, the company announced Monday.

LAS VEGAS – Christian Hellmers, the enigmatic West Coast "guru" on the "Horseplayers" television show, played every bit the part after winning $269,640 for topping a field of 749 at the Horse Player World Series at the Orleans Casino here Saturday afternoon.

When Kieron Magee won with his final starter of Laurel Park’s winter meet on Friday afternoon, he moved into what he figured was only a temporary tie for first place in the trainer standings with Hugh McMahon, Juan Vazquez, and Claudio Gonzalez.

Magee, who has just 22 horses in his barn, had no starters on closing day Saturday, so he was stuck at 19 wins. But when McMahon and Gonzalez combined to go 0 for 7 on Laurel’s last day of racing, the four-way tie remained intact.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Harry Hubbard Johnson, who recently left the employ of trainer Steve Asmussen at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., committed suicide Friday in Kentucky.

Johnson was Asmussen’s shed foreman, a position that ranks a level below assistant trainer. He died two days following his 27th birthday.

“He was a kind soul and a pleasure to be around,” Asmussen said Saturday. “I feel horrible for the whole Johnson family.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The mutuel field is holding sway as the favorite after two days of wagering into fourth and final pool in the 2014 Kentucky Derby Future Wager.

Pool 4 will close today at 6 p.m. Eastern, prior to the runnings of the Florida Derby and Louisiana Derby.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Keeneland Racecourse in Lexington is reviewing site plans that would allow the iconic racetrack to accommodate the crowds that attend the two-day Breeders’ Cup event in anticipation of making a bid for the event later this year, the chief executive of Keeneland said Friday.

Rampart Stakes (Gulfstream, Race 4) by Michael Hammersly

They thought enough of her last year to try her against the boys in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes. OK, so she’s not Rags to Riches but this is still a quality, quality filly. After a busy spring they put her away and she worked very nicely this winter. They brought her back in a sprint here March 8 and she fizzled as the heavy favorite, but that was the first time in her life she’d sprinted, so that’s not her game. Maybe that run should be best viewed as a sharp 7-furlong workout.

The Jockey Club will press for the passage of legislation allowing a federally designated company to write and enforce horse racing’s medication rules if “the major racing states” have not adopted a series of Jockey Club-supported reforms by August, the chairman of the organization, Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps, said in a statement Friday.

The vow to push for federal regulation of racing reiterates a position The Jockey Club staked out last August, when it made a similar threat at the organization’s Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing.