The Maryland legislature passed a bill Monday night that will require Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course to hold at least 146 live racing days each year through 2013 while also allowing the tracks to use millions of dollars in annual casino subsidies for operating expenses.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Grade 1 winner Haynesfield earned his second consecutive title as New York-bred Horse of the Year Monday night at the New York Thoroughbreds Breeders’ annual awards banquet in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The Speightstown horse, now a 5-year-old, won the Jockey Club Gold Cup last year to push his career earnings over the $1 million mark. He’s now won nine of 15 starts and made $1,166,981. Margaret Santulli and Barry Weisbord bred Haynesfield from the Tejabo stakes-winner Nothing Special. Turtle Bird Stable races Haynesfield, and Steve Asmussen trains him.

The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority has begun negotiations with Morris Bailey, a horse owner and real-estate developer, on a five-year operating lease of Monmouth Park, the authority announced late on Monday.

For months, Uncle Mo was the acknowledged favorite for the Kentucky Derby on May 7, but his stunning loss Saturday in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, part of an unpredictable day of Derby preps, has left the Derby picture quite unsettled less than four weeks out.

A farmhouse belonging to Thoroughbred trainer Burton K. Sipp and his wife, Bridget, was destroyed by fire on Monday morning, according to local reports from Springfield, N.J., where the farmhouse was located.

The farmhouse was located approximately 300 yards from a facility owned and operated by the Sipps, the Animal Kingdom Pet Store and Zoo. According to local reports, no animals at the zoo or the store, or any of the horses pasturing in adjacent fields, were hurt in the fire. Burton Sipp was apparently in Arizona at the time of the fire, according to reports.

Paradise Creek, 1994’s champion turf male, died on April 4 in Japan, according to a Thoroughbred Times report, which did not provide a cause.

The 22-year-old Paradise Creek had stood at Maekawa Yoshinori on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido but reportedly was pensioned in 2010.

By finishing second in the Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial at Aqueduct last Saturday, Arthur’s Tale didn’t exactly pull Excalibur from the stone, but he leapt from Kentucky Derby non-entity to one of the intriguing “bubble” possibilities for this year’s Run for the Roses.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Representatives of the newly formed California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and the Thoroughbred Owners of California met for the first time at Santa Anita on Sunday without a resolution on the CTHA’s request that the TOC change its board of directors to include more owner-trainers.

Roger Licht, a founding member of the CTHA, said the meeting “went well. I don’t know what will come out, but we’ll see.”

Velazquez did right by telling public Life At Ten's plight

After reading the April 8 article "Velazquez agrees to a fine," regarding the $10,000 fine levied against jockey John Velazquez by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, I was both puzzled and intrigued. I will address only my puzzlement. The intrigue - well, I have come to understand that to be a big part of horse racing.