Most jobs at the racetrack are comprehensible to the outside world. You ride horses, or you train them, own them, take bets, or bet on them.

Steve Hurley, a chart caller for 30 years, is not so lucky. He only receives blank stares when he describes his occupation.

“It’s so far from mainstream anything,” he said with a laugh. “As far as, ‘What do you mean? What do you do? How do you learn that?’ They’re just looking at you, shaking their heads, and they’ve got no idea.”

The Jockey Club has reached a multi-year agreement with the Fox television network to broadcast up to 20 stakes races next year on the network’s new sports channel, Jockey Club officials announced on Thursday.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Calvin Borel will be inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame on Friday because of a résumé that includes more than 5,000 wins and three victories in the Kentucky Derby.

But it is something else that makes Borel a Hall of Famer in the eyes of his contemporaries.

Tim Kreiser passed 1,000 winners earlier this year. By the end of 2013, the Penn National-based trainer is a lock to have his first triple-digit win season. He has always been a high-percentage trainer, but is hovering around 30 percent in 2013.

“A couple good claims, that’s about the only difference,’’ Kreiser said.

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Joe Kirk Fulton, who owned and bred the Quarter Horse world champions Dashs Dream (1984) and Special Leader (1991), died of cancer at his ranch near Stonewall, Texas, on Thursday, his family has announced. Fulton was 81.

A native Texan, Fulton’s family had considerable holdings in oil and gas pipelines in the early 20th century, and later invested in banks and ranches. Through his Fulton Quien Sabe ranch in Giddings Texas, Fulton was one of Quarter Horse racing’s most successful and influential breeders.

Robert D. “Bobby” Peck, a former jockey who became well known to many riders and horsemen as the clerk of scales on the Kentucky circuit for nearly 20 years, died Tuesday after a lengthy illness. He was 64.

Fire officials on Friday were investigating a blaze at a training center near Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., that claimed the lives of 18 horses. The barn fire broke out just before 6 p.m. Thursday, and three area departments responded to the call, according to Bob Callahan, public educator for the Bossier Parish Fire District 1.

Callahan said there was no loss of human life in the blaze. He said as of Friday morning, the current count of lost horses was 18. Callahan said fire officials were at the training center, a privately-owned facility named River Point, on Friday.

Trainer Buff Bradley said Friday from Churchill Downs that his star mare Groupie Doll will make her 5-year-old debut next Saturday, Aug. 10, in the Grade 3 Gardenia Stakes, the annual showcase race at Ellis Park in western Kentucky.

Groupie Doll, unraced since late November, has been working forwardly toward the one-mile Gardenia in recent weeks, including a half-mile breeze Friday in 48 seconds over a fast Churchill track.

An estimated 17 to 20 horses died in a barn fire at a training center adjacent to Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., on Thursday night, confirmed Dwight Viator, who lost five horses in the fire, including four-time stakes winner Look At the Time.

Viator said he was one of four trainers who had horses stabled in the barn, which he described as the first barn upon entering the River Point training center from the Louisiana Downs side. Viator also has a division of horses at Louisiana Downs. He said the fire broke out at about 6 p.m. Central.

When Mort Fink reads stories online about Wise Dan, the Horse of the Year he bred and owns, he does not shy from the comments sections, where public opinion can come coarse and unfiltered.

“I read the comments all the time,” Fink said. “It amuses me.”