On July 13, ESPN will host its annual ESPY (Excellence in Sport Performance Yearly) awards in Los Angeles. Three categories have horse racing-related nominees:

1. Best Jockey. This has been handed out annually since 1994. Calvin Borel won last year’s ESPY based on his winning Kentucky Derby ride on Super Saver, Borel’s third Derby victory in four seasons. This year, one of Ramon Dominguez, Garrett Gomez, or John Velazquez will unseat Borel.

2. Best Upset. Blame’s stunning victory over the previously undefeated Zenyatta.

British trainer Mark Johnston qualified and practiced as a veterinarian before taking out his trainer’s license in 1987. From his base in Yorkshire, he has trained the winners of the 1000 and 2000 Guineas, Ascot Gold Cup, and Goodwood Cup, among other prestigious races. Most recently, he won a pair of stakes at Royal Ascot: the Group 3 Queen’s Vase with Namibian and the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes with Fox Hunt. Both were purchases from Tattersalls in England, but Johnston shops regularly at U.S. yearling auctions, too.

If Luis Contreras is overwhelmed by pressure situations, he has mastered the art of keeping it covered up – a tactic he skillfully demonstrated when he settled Inglorious behind rivals and guided her to the Queen’s Plate winner’s circle in June. As 30,000 fans at Woodbine witnessed only the fifth filly to sweep the Woodbine Oaks and Plate, Contreras appeared poised competing for the first time in Canada’s most important race.

EAST BOSTON, Mass. − Joe Rocco Sr. knows his way around every racetrack up and down the East Coast, but he is having a tough time finding the winner's circle at Suffolk Downs.

The Breeders’ Cup plans to award $250,000 to participants in a promotion geared to the Breeders’ Cup Classic that will allow racing fans to “virtually” own horses in the Classic division, the organization announced Wednesday.

Dublin, winner of the Grade 1 Hopeful in 2009, suffered a fractured sesamoid in his right foreleg and has been retired from racing, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Wednesday.

Dublin returned from a 14-month layoff last Saturday at Churchill Downs, where he finished sixth in a second-level allowance race. Lukas said the injury was detected back at the barn.

James Scatuorchio has sued Walmac Farm, its managing director John T. L. Jones III, and related companies over Walmac’s management of Ready’s Image, the 6-year-old More Than Ready stallion whom Scatuorchio raced.

Scatuorchio and his family members are seeking unspecified damages for 16 counts, including alleged fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. Walmac issued a statement Tuesday calling the suit “frivolous.”

Attorneys for Canterbury Park spent Tuesday preparing paperwork for an appeal of a ruling handed down in Ramsey County District Court that denied the track’s request to remain open during a state shutdown.

The fate of Thursday’s card, the next scheduled day of live racing, remains up in the air and a decision may not be made until Thursday morning.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Dakota Phone, the upset winner of the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile last November, has been retired because of an injury sustained in the spring, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said on Monday.

"He has an injury we probably won't bring him back from," Hollendorfer said.
Owned by the trainer, John Carver, Halo Farms, and George Todaro, Dakota Phone won 6 of 35 starts and $1,282,210. A 6-year-old gelding by Zavata, Dakota Phone had by far his best season in 2010, winning 2 of 12 starts and $973,720.

Monday’s 64th running of the Grade 1 Prioress Stakes at Belmont Park will likely be viewed by most racing fans across the country as just another race with multiple exotic-betting opportunities.

Only a handful of these fans will know or care who or what Prioress is, and not one sportswriter is likely to do what his or her predecessors once did – add a paragraph or two, or sometimes write an entire column, about the derivation of the name and historical significance of the stakes.