The veterinary team at Churchill Downs that is responsible for pre-race inspections has been provided with a new data-analytics tool that will generate risk-factor scores for horses that are entered in races at the track, according to officials of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.
The owner of Kentucky Downs and a partner have reached an agreement to purchase Wyoming Downs and all of its off-track betting parlors, the parties announced on Monday. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
ECL Entertainment, a company headed by Ron Winchell and Marc Falcone that owns Kentucky Downs and its associated casinos, is making the acquisition with the Clairvest Group, a Toronto-based private equity company. The partners previously acquired a charitable gaming facility in New Hampshire last year.
Society Man will have some new owners when he runs in the Kentucky Derby, trainer Danny Gargan said Thursday.
Dean and Patti Reeves, who own Reeves Thoroughbred Racing, and Carl and Yurie Pascarella have bought part interest in the gelding who finished second at 106-1 in last Saturday’s Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The horse will run in the Reeves’s dark green, white, and gold silks in the Derby, Gargan said.
The Maryland legislature on Monday approved a bill that will result in state ownership of Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore and the creation of a non-profit company to run Thoroughbred racing in the state.
Lorenzo Ruiz, a trainer based at Los Alamitos in Southern California, has been suspended a total of seven years and ordered to pay fines and costs of $95,000 for violations related to the finding of the banned vasodilator diisopropylamine in three of his horses last year, according to the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit.
Total wagering in March on U.S. Thoroughbred races reversed recent month-over-month declines, posting a 1.0 percent gain despite a slight decline in the number of races held, according to figures distributed by Equibase on Friday.
Total wagering was $972.06 million, up $9.5 million when compared to the total wagering figure for March of last year. However, March of this year had 10 weekend dates, compared to eight in March of last year. Wagering on Thoroughbred races is generally far higher on weekends than on a weekdays.
The New York Racing Association has reached a sponsorship agreement with DraftKings that will make the sports-betting company an “official betting partner” of Saratoga Race Course and that track’s Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, as well as the presenting sponsor of the Grade 1 Travers Stakes on Aug. 24.
The agreement is an expansion of a separate, smaller sponsorship agreement between the two companies last year, when DraftKings was the presenting sponsor of the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga.
Trainer Steve Asmussen said following Track Phantom’s fading fourth-place finish in the Louisiana Derby that he planned to try blinkers on the colt in the Kentucky Derby, and Track Phantom has been getting accustomed to the new equipment in daily gallops.
“He looked beautiful training today,” Asmussen said Wednesday. “The blinkers are for what he did from the quarter pole to the wire last time, not what he does in the morning, but I do want them on him.”
The 3-year-old filly Intricate came out of her disappointing fourth-place finish in the Fair Grounds Oaks with mucus in her upper-respiratory system and is currently in a holding pattern.
“She had a significant amount of mucus on the scope,” trainer Brendan Walsh said. “I think it was enough to make an excuse. We’ve been treating her for it, just trying to get her right, get her healthy. All plans are on hold until we get her right.”
