LEXINGTON, Ky. – A Kentucky Senate committee on Wednesday approved a bill allowing for a referendum that will ask voters whether to approve up to seven casinos in the state, sending the bill to a showdown on the Senate floor, likely within the next week.

WHO’S HOT

Bob Baffert, that’s who. He swept divisions of the Southwest Stakes on Monday with Castaway and Secret Circle, both of whom earned berths on the Derby Watch top 20 list this week as a result. Secret Circle ran the faster time, a large reason why Mike Watchmaker, Daily Racing Form’s national handicapper, has him at 20-1 on his future book line for the May 5 Kentucky Derby. Watchmaker made Castaway 30-1. Baffert also won the San Vicente with Drill, but since he is not being considered for the Derby, he was kept off the list.

Some of the winter snowbirds are returning north early. Chief among them is Hansen, the juvenile champion of 2011 who suffered his first setback in the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream on Jan. 29. Hansen is scheduled to make his next start in the Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct on March 3 and is expected to control the press clippings, and the pace, for that race.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -   Transito Salazar, a hot walker for trainer Peter Walder, sustained head injuries when he allegedly fell  from the third-floor balcony of one of the dormitories at Gulfstream Park early Sunday morning.

Walder said Salazar is at nearby Aventura Hospital..

Owners defend trainer Sadler on his merits

In regard to the Feb. 5 letter "California penalty barely slapped wrist," about fines levied against John Sadler and mentioning Jeff Mullins: We cannot speak for Jeff Mullins, but our family has owned horses their entire life, and John Sadler has been our trainer for the last 15 great years.

The fatal hyperbaric chamber explosion at Kentucky Equine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center in Ocala, Fla. was an accident caused when a horseshoe on a chamber patient caused a spark that ignited in the chamber’s pressurized, oxygen-rich environment.

The Feb. 10 explosion killed Kesmarc employee Erica Marshall, 28, and the 6-year-old Thoroughbred under treatment. It also injured another woman, 33-year-old visiting observer Sorcha Moneley.

A San Diego Superior Court judge has set aside a 70-day suspension against California trainer Jeff Mullins for a 2008 medication violation, saying that his rights were violated by the California Horse Racing Board during the hearing process.

A group representing New York racetrack-casino operators on Thursday released a study it funded purporting to measure the economic impact of casinos as part of a public-relations campaign to get table games legalized at their facilities.

The group, the New York Gaming Association, was formed in 2011 to push for casinos' interests in New York. Recently, the group has been lobbying for support for the legalization of table games, which will likely need to be passed as a constitutional amendment. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has expressed support for the amendment.

Acclamation, honored last month with the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding older male of 2011, took home another prize from that campaign on Monday – California-bred Horse of the Year.

The announcement of Acclamation’s California-bred Horse of the Year title was made at the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association’s annual dinner in Pasadena, Calif.

Owned by a partnership led by Bud Johnston, Acclamation was also named champion California-bred older male and turf horse, titles that were announced last month.

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission voted unanimously to accept a hearing officer’s recommendation that its former chief state steward, John Veitch, be suspended for one year for his role in the Life At Ten incident at the 2010 Breeders’ Cup.

Veitch was fired in November of last year, two weeks before the hearing officer’s report was released. Veitch has appealed the dismissal, and if the appeal were to be successful and Veitch ordered to be re-instated, he would then be subject to the one-year suspension of his license, according to commission officials.