The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has opened voting at www.ntra.com for the 14th annual “NTRA Moment of the Year.”
Voters can choose from among 12 events this year, and the winning moment will be recognized Jan. 19 at the Eclipse Awards ceremony at Gulfstream Park.
Those selecting the winning image automatically will be entered in a random drawing for a $100 gift certificate for Breeders’ Cup merchandise.
The events that fans can choose from are:
Maryland racing interests have reached an agreement on a 10-year deal that will guarantee at least 100 live racing dates at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course and provide horsemen with year-round stabling at the two tracks, racetrack officials and horsemen announced Friday.
See the questions HERE.
1. On May 9, 1959, Warfare, a grey son of 1954 Kentucky Derby winner Determine, finished fourth in his career debut at Hollywood Park.
Over the next 10 weeks, Warfare started six more times at Hollywood Park, breaking his maiden in his third start and winning the Charles S. Howard Stakes in his sixth start at odds of 20-1. In his next race, he came from far back to finish third in the Hollywood Juvenile Championship.
There was something surreal about the sight of the Kentucky Derby-winning jockey wandering through the crowd at Hoosier Park on an October afternoon, all dressed up with no horse to ride. But there he was, Mario Gutierrez, grounded by Hoosier’s stewards for being late to the dance – the dance in this case being the $500,000 Indiana Derby – and forced to watch alongside the paying customers as his mount, Paul Reddam’s Second City, finished 10th of 11 under someone else.
The veterinary division of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission has implemented several new procedures in the hopes of avoiding more mistakes with a program requiring that state employees administer the anti-bleeding medication furosemide to horses on race days, commission officials said Wednesday.
In other years, under other circumstances, Shane Sellers would be at Fair Grounds for the winter.
But the 47-year-old jockey has decided instead to remain in Kentucky, working on a 57-acre farm he purchased earlier this year with trainer Pat Huffman. Sellers, whose 4,387 career victories rank him 45th all-time in North American racing history, said the shoulder fracture he suffered in a June spill at Churchill Downs hurt his business, and he felt another winter in New Orleans would be fruitless.
The Arkansas and Texas racing commissions have both recently made changes to medication policies governing some commonly used therapeutic drugs.
The Arkansas Racing Commission on Tuesday adopted an amendment that lowers the allowable level of phenylbutazone, or bute, in a horse’s system. The new threshold level is 2.0 micrograms per milliliter of blood, said Ron Oliver, executive director for the commission. The previous threshold had been 5.0 micrograms per milliliter of blood except in graded stakes, when the standard was 2.0.
The Arkansas Racing Commission on Tuesday adopted an amendment that lowers the allowable level of phenylbutazone, commonly called bute, in a horse's system, according to Ron Oliver, the organization's executive director. The change will go into effect with the start of the Oaklawn Park meet on Jan. 11.
Bute is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. The new threshold level is 2.0 micrograms per milliliter of blood, said Oliver. The previous threshold had been 5.0 micrograms per milliliter of blood except in graded stakes, when the standard was 2.0.
The first step toward live racing coming to West Texas in October 2014 will take place Friday, when the yet-to-be-constructed Saddle Brook Park opens a simulcast facility in Amarillo, Texas. The parlor will launch at 11 a.m., with 19 tracks available including Aqueduct, Betfair Hollywood Park, Gulfstream Park, and Fair Grounds.
