ETOBICOKE, Ontario – A memorial service was to be held at Palm Meadows on Wednesday for Greg De Gannes, an Ontario-based trainer who died in Florida last Sunday at age 50.
De Gannes, born in Trinidad, relocated to Canada in 1973 when his father, Rolph De Gannes, accepted a position as resident veterinarian at Windfields Farm.
To commit to the life of a trainer, there are no days off, no overtime pay, little time to even mope, so Todd Pletcher was back at work on Monday, overseeing workouts of five of his potential Kentucky Derby prospects at the Palm Meadows training center. But he still hadn’t recovered from the body blow of Sunday, when he reported that Violence, the future book favorite for the May 4 Kentucky Derby, had come out of Saturday’s Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park with a career-ending injury.
NEW ORLEANS – Steve Asmussen became the third all-time leading trainer by wins when Skinny won the seventh race on Feb. 17 at Fair Grounds.
Skinny’s victory in a Louisiana-bred maiden special weight race gave Asmussen 6,367 for his career, pushing him one past King Leatherbury.
Longtime rider and racing official Merlin Volzke, 87, died at his home in Sacramento on Thursday night.
A native of York, Neb., Volzke recorded his first victory at Aqua Caliente in Mexico in 1942 and retired from riding in 1979. He then served as a steward at Bay Meadows and Los Alamitos for 26 years before retiring in 2005.
Calder Race Course on Friday filed an amended application with Florida regulators seeking year-round dates from July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2014, in an escalation of a dates war brewing with neighboring Gulfstream Park.
The board of the Breeders’ Cup on Friday discussed making modifications to its current roster of races and to a policy that would ban the race-day use of furosemide, but it suspended any action on the items until it reconvenes later this year, according to sources.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The takeout rate on the popular 50-cent pick five could rise sharply for the spring-summer meeting at Betfair Hollywood Park later this year unless track officials and the Thoroughbred Owners of California reach an agreement on the distribution of revenue.
Track president Jack Liebau told the California Horse Racing Board at its Thursday meeting that discussions continue but that the takeout rate could rise from the current promotional 14 percent rate to the standard exotic takeout rate of 23.65 percent in the absence of a deal.
Maryland-based jockey Mario Pino, the 10th-winningest rider in North American history with 6,484 victories, on Friday was named as the 64th winner of the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, it was announced by Santa Anita.
Though Santa Anita has been the home of the Woolf Award since its inception, the winner is voted on by members of the Jockeys’ Guild, recognizing outstanding achievement both on and off the track.
Ramon Dominguez was last year’s winner.
The other finalists this year were Javier Castellano, Perry Compton, David Flores, and Rodney Prescott.
The vice president for racing communications at Churchill Downs, John Asher has in many ways become the face of Churchill and the Kentucky Derby, serving as a media-relations liaison primarily for the track’s racing and communications departments. He has worked for Churchill for 16 years, and before that he worked in radio, winning five Eclipse Awards from 1989-95 for radio presentation.
Age: 57
Residence: Louisville, Ky.
Family: wife, Dee; daughters Heather, Erin, Emma
GEORGETOWN, Ky. − The skunk is in the kitchen.
“That’s Stella,” Karen Bailey says, glancing down at the striped creature at her feet. “Somebody brought her to us in a bucket. She was attacked as a newborn by Jack Russells. They killed the rest of her family, but we managed to save her.”
But the skunk is in the kitchen.
