SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – New classes of performance-enhancing drugs will likely be administered well before a race occurs and be difficult to detect in postrace tests, underlining the importance of out-of-competition testing of horses in the near future, according to racing regulators and chemists.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – If this keeps up, Sam-Son Farm will need its own wing in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

Soaring Free, winner of the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile and 14 other races in his 27-race career, is the latest Sam-Son inductee and will be honored Thursday evening at the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame’s annual ceremony at the nearby Mississauga Convention Centre.

The late Ernie Samuel, founder and head of Sam-Son Farm, and his daughter and successor, the late Tammy Samuel-Balaz, have been enshrined in the builder category.

The American Graded Stakes Committee has approved a policy that will require races to have a minimum $300,000 purse to be eligible for a Grade 1 and a minimum $200,000 purse to be eligible for a Grade 2, the committee announced Monday.

Stewards at Delaware Park suspended trainer Donald Roberson for two years on Saturday, effective immediately, after a search at Roberson’s barn in July turned up syringes and injectable material, according to a ruling released Saturday.

The satellite network that provides simulcast signals to racetracks and satellite betting locations nationwide was out of service for approximately 90 minutes on Friday afternoon because of poor weather, track officials said on Saturday.

The Jockey Club has elected three new members to its board of stewards – John C. Harris, William M. Lear Jr., and Dr. Hiram C. Polk Jr. – filling the expired positions of James C. Brady, William S. Farish, and Richard T. Santulli.

Harris had been a Jockey Club steward from 1990 through 1994. He is a former chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, and was five-time president of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association.

Lear, the managing director and chairman of a law firm based in Lexington, Ky., is a trustee of the Keeneland Association.

The points system introduced last year to determine eligibility for the 2013 Kentucky Derby will remain mostly the same for the 2014 Derby, Churchill Downs announced Friday.

Four races were removed from the points system, including the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs and the Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs, while two races were added: the Iroquois Stakes for 2-year-olds at Churchill and the Jerome Stakes at Aqueduct for 3-year-olds, held just after the start of the new year.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Chris Kay, the reorganization specialist who was hired as the chief executive officer of the New York Racing Association in June, will fill the seat reserved for NYRA on the board of directors of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the NTRA said on Friday after a board meeting.

NYRA’s seat on the board had been filled on an interim basis by David O’Rourke, NYRA’s vice president of corporate development, since the resignation of its former chief operating officer, Ellen McClain, at the end of April.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – At Friday’s National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, trainer Carl Nafzger revealed the extent of his instructions to jockey Calvin Borel before he gave him a leg up on Street Sense prior to the 2007 Kentucky Derby.

“Calvin, do you like to ride races?” Nafzger asked him.

“Sure I do, you know that,” Borel replied.

“You have fun riding races?” Nafzger asked.

“You know that boss,” Borel said.

The name of the Breeders’ Cup Ladies' Classic will be restored to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff for the 2013 event and beyond, the Breeders’ Cup said Thursday.

The race is one of Breeders’ Cup’s seven original races, and it was run as the Distaff from the inaugural event in 1984 until 2007. The name was changed to the Ladies’ Classic in 2008, when Breeders’ Cup shifted the lineup of its races by putting races restricted to fillies and mares on the first day of the event after first splitting the card into two days in 2007.