Three horses who qualified last weekend for the $1,041,000 Ed Burke Million Futurity at Los Alamitos on June 24 have been seized by federal officials after their owners were arrested on Tuesday on money laundering charges involving a notorious Mexican drug cartel that used funds to allegedly purchase Quarter Horses in the United States.

Giant Ryan’s surgery to repair the severe injuries he sustained during the running of Saturday’s Grade 2 True North Handicap at Belmont Park has been postponed from Monday to Thursday at the earliest, owner Shivananda Parbhoo reported Tuesday.

Giant Ryan fractured both sesamoid bones and suffered vascular damage in his left front leg after breaking down nearing midstretch in the True North. Parbhoo shipped Giant Ryan to the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center late Sunday evening.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Trainer Doug O’Neill, who won this year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness with I'll Have Another, plans to a contest a 45-day suspension issued by the California Horse Racing Board last month after one of his starters tested in excess of the permitted level of total carbon dioxide in 2010.

The suspension was issued by the racing board May 24 following a seven-day hearing in 2011 and a decision released in April by administrative law judge Steffan Imhoff.

“I’ll fight it until I can’t fight it anymore,” O’Neill said.

The California Authority of Racing Fairs will offer $1,080,000 in stakes purses during its season, which begins next Thursday, June 21, with the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton. There are 19 stakes scheduled at the six fair tracks – Pleasanton, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Ferndale, Stockton, and Fresno – with the first one the $50,000 California Wine Stakes on June 23 at Pleasanton.

The Maryland Racing Commission will conduct a formal review of the official time recorded for Secretariat’s win in the 1973 Preakness Stakes at its monthly commission meeting on June 19, representatives of Secretariat said on Tuesday.

ELMONT, N.Y. – The cameras that heralded his arrival some 22 days ago were non-existent Monday morning when I’ll Have Another left Barn 9 at Belmont Park and was loaded onto a horse trailer.

Only the crew that had been with him on the Triple Crown journey and a few members of trainer Mark Hennig’s staff – Hennig is based in Barn 9 – were around to bid farewell to I’ll Have Another, four stablemates and their famous stable pony Lava Man.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Mark Valeski, winner of the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park in his last start, has been sidelined with a small chip in his left front knee and will undergo surgery soon to have it removed.

Trainer Larry Jones said Monday that Mark Valeski was sent from Churchill Downs to the Airdrie Stud of the colt’s owner-breeder, Brereton C. Jones, and that he hopes to have the 3-year-old colt back for the Fair Grounds meet, which begins in late November.

“It’s just a little flake and the prognosis is good,” said Larry Jones.

E.J. Perrodin, a jockey for 39 years who was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after retiring in February, died on Sunday morning, confirmed his brother-in-law, trainer Patrick Mouton. Perrodin was 55.

Mouton said services will be held Wednesday at Hill Crest Memorial Funeral Home in Haughton, La. He said there would be a visitation from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with a funeral service to immediately follow. Perrodin died at his home in Haughton. 

ELMONT, N.Y. – Union Rags, who won the 144th Belmont Stakes here at Belmont Park on Saturday, was back in his stall at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland by 1 a.m. early Sunday and will get a brief vacation before pointing for major summer races, trainer Michael Matz said Sunday.

"He was out in his paddock from 7 to 9:30,” Matz said in a conference call with reporters on Sunday morning. “He went for a roll, then was eating some grass, was watching the other horses go out and train.”

The overnight rating for the race portion of the Belmont Stakes broadcast on NBC on Saturday evening was a 5.4, up 13 percent over the rating last year, according to the network. Share was a 13, up 18 percent compared with  the share for last year, the network said.