A New York Times story on the role of veterinarians in the use of drugs in horse racing has been named the first winner of the Stan Bergstein Writing Award, sponsored by Team Valor International. The Sept. 21 article, by Walt Bogdanich, Joe Drape, and Rebecca Ruiz, was part of a series the newspaper ran investigating the physical health of racehorses.

The award is named for the late Daily Racing Form columnist who had been a major figure in the harness racing industry for more than half a century.

The New York Racing Association had net income of $24.8 million in the third quarter of 2012, up 142 percent compared with net income in the third quarter of last year, largely due to payments from a casino at Aqueduct, according to unaudited financial statements posted on its website Friday.

A Kentucky circuit court on Thursday dismissed a horse owner’s challenge of a state rule restricting where a horse can run after it is claimed, in a ruling that said the so-called “jail-time” restriction was a “proper exercise” of the state racing commission’s powers.

Morton Fink, the owner and breeder of Horse of the Year contender Wise Dan, has received the John Deere Award for Outstanding Breeder by Breeders’ Cup Ltd., the organization announced on Friday.

The award is presented to the breeder who amasses the most points in a system based on wins in Breeders’ Cup races and the races within the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series. Fink’s total was 30, based on Wise Dan’s wins in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, Woodbine Mile, and Shadwell Turf Mile. All are Grade 1 races, worth 10 points each.

The American Graded Stakes Committee has upgraded both the Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park and the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga from Grade 2 to Grade 1 for 2013 as part of its annual review of the stakes calendar in the United States.

The Hopeful and Delaware Handicap were two of the 12 races that were upgraded by the committee during the review. The committee upgraded three stakes from Grade 3 to Grade 2 and additionally upgraded the listed Colonial Turf Cup to Grade 2. Six races were upgraded from listed to Grade 3.

Jake Mullins estimates that there are 8,000 sets of racing silks, including duplicates, in what Santa Anita calls its Colors Room. It’s one of the most used rooms around a racetrack, even though at Santa Anita nothing is painted on the door. You’ve got to know the territory.

“There are 1,700 hooks, and each hook holds nine sets,” said Mullins, 61. “I didn’t count them, but the guy before me [Frank Smothers] did, and that’s what he told me. Not all the hooks are filled. But hell, we’ve got 500 sets in the ‘C’ row alone. Do the math.”

Damon Thayer, a Republican Kentucky senator with ties to the racing industry who has supported legislation for a constitutional referendum allowing for casinos at racetracks, was elected majority floor leader of the state Senate on Tuesday night by his party.

The position is second in line to the president of the Senate. The floor leader plays a major role in determining which bills will be heard by the Senate and acts as a spokesman for the Republican caucus.

Monmouth Park in New Jersey intends to move forward with plans to offer sports betting while a host of legal issues surrounding the practice remain unresolved, a top official of the track said Wednesday.

Joe Kelly, who worked in Maryland racing for some 70 years and was widely known as an outstanding historian on the Preakness and other racing matters, died Monday in his lifelong hometown of Baltimore following a brief illness. He was 94.

A U.S. financial regulatory commission on Monday filed a lawsuit against Intrade, claiming that the Ireland-based betting company violated federal commodities law by offering U.S. customers the chance to wager on the future prices of gold, oil, and other commodities.