Uncertainty is nothing new in Michigan, a state whose reputation has decayed from a pillar of Midwestern prosperity into a cautionary tale.

While the most widely recognized scenes of Michigan’s decline have come from Detroit’s ailing manufacturing industry, the state’s horse racing industry has been in the midst of its own tailspin. Over the past 15 years, the state’s Thoroughbred platoon has endured a nomadic crisscrossing of the state in search of a permanent home and has instead found diminishing returns.

LEXINGTON. Ky. – Over the past several years, U.S. drug-testing officials and chemists have increasingly sought to procure substances that have been rumored to be administered to racehorses on race day or in out-of-competition environments in clear violation of the sport’s rules. They’ve sent the substances on to labs for analyses to determine their active ingredients and their likely impacts on racing performance.

There’s some bad news about that, and there’s some good news.

POMONA, Calif. - The Southern California Thoroughbred calendar without Betfair Hollywood Park was clarified on Thursday when the California Horse Racing Board confirmed racing dates for the next two years. The board also announced that beginning in February offtrack stabling will be divided among Barretts Racing and Sales, San Luis Rey Downs and Los Alamitos.

The Friday card of the two-day Breeders’ Cup event Nov. 1-2 at Santa Anita will include a Breeders’ Cup-affiliated race for purebred Arabians, the organization announced Thursday in conjunction with the Emirates Equestrian Federation.

The race, to be called the President of the UAE Cup, is likely to be the first race on a Breeders’ Cup card for horses other than Thoroughbreds. The Friday card is expected to include five Breeders’ Cup races plus undercard races, including the race for Arabians, while the Saturday card will include nine Breeders’ Cup races, plus undercard events.

Jack Van Berg, the Hall of Fame trainer who has spent the last 20-plus years primarily in Southern California, announced Thursday on a national teleconference that he is returning to live and work in the Midwest, where he spent many of his most successful years in racing.

In December, the famed jockey schools of Latin America graduate their pupils. Their best young riders – the Joel Rosarios of the world – will have contracted agents to represent them in the United States. They leave soon after for south Florida or New York, their skills honed years for this chance, the circumstances of their departure carefully managed. They come ready to make money, ready to make their mark.

The California Horse Racing Board has suspended Genaro Vallejo, a Northern California trainer, for 30 days under an agreement that closes the appeals process over a post-race positive test for a banned muscle-building drug 18 months ago.

The Maryland Racing Commission on Tuesday approved a set of medication rules that has been endorsed by a number of prominent national racing organizations for adoption in all U.S. racing jurisdictions.

They have been racing at Parx (formerly Keystone and Philadelphia Park) for more than four decades. Saturday marks the best card in the history of the racetrack.

There will be $3 million in purses on the line over 12 races, $2.3 million in graded stakes, including a pair of $1 million stakes, the Grade 1 Cotillion and Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby.

Rain is a rarity this time of year in Southern California, and that’s why Mucho Macho Man will spend the autumn at Santa Anita preparing for his second start in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

In a week with little activity on the Classic front, Mucho Macho Man at least bumped the needle slightly when he showed up on the Santa Anita work tab Sept. 14. And this was no mere mild maintenance move, at least in terms of time: Mucho Macho Man went five furlongs in 59.20 seconds, the fastest of 58 five-eighths Santa Anita works this past Saturday.