Trainer Bennie “Chip” Woolley, the small-time trainer who hit it big when Mine That Bird won the 2009 Kentucky Derby, has been suspended for 180 days by stewards at Turf Paradise racetrack for possession of a needle and syringe, according to a ruling provided by the state’s Department of Racing.

The 180-day suspension is the highest penalty that stewards can assign, and the ruling requests that the Department of Racing take additional action “due to the severity of this violation which calls into question the honesty and integrity of horse racing in Arizona.”

Mine That Bird, winner of the 2009 Kentucky Derby, will make an appearance Saturday at Ruidoso Downs, according to a press release from the New Mexico track. He is being feted in conjunction with his Friday night induction into the Ruidoso Downs Racehorse Hall of Fame.

Others entering the Ruidoso Hall on Friday are Harriett Peckham, who alone or in partnership owned Easy Jet, Go Man Go, and Rocket Bar; Leo Wood, who trained All American Futurity winner Pie In The Sky; and Johnny Cox, who was aboard Mr Kid Charge for his win in the All American Futurity.

Preakness starter Conquest Mo Money is scheduled to arrive in New Mexico next week to rehab from injuries he sustained while preparing for the Grade 2 Woody Stephens on the June 10 Belmont Stakes card. The progress he makes will dictate whether he returns to the races at Zia Park, which opens in September and runs into December, or Sunland Park, which starts its season on the heels of Zia.

“We’re not going to push him,” said Tom McKenna, who races Conquest Mo Money with his wife, Sandra.

Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird and his trainer, Chip Woolley, will make a special appearance June 17-18 at SunRay Park, the Farmington, N.M., track, announced Saturday night. Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby in 2009 after being based in New Mexico, and inspired the film 50-1.

SunRay will distribute free autographed photos of Woolley, who lives near the track in Bloomfield, N.M.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird was among the inductees into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame at the Mississauga Convention Center on Wednesday night.

Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird has been elected into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in the Thoroughbred male horse category. He is joined by jockey Stewart Elliott, breeder Robert Anderson, Woodbine television personality Jim Bannon, and trainer Roger Laurin to make up the Thoroughbred class of 2015.

The five Thoroughbred inductees and five Standardbred inductees will be honored at the annual Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame induction ceremony Aug. 5 at the Mississauga Convention Centre.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario — Longtime Woodbine owner Derek Ball died suddenly Dec. 12 at age 65.

With Hugh Galbraith and trainer Dave Cotey, Ball owned Canadian champions Lady Shari and Mine That Bird, who captured the 2009 Kentucky Derby after being sold near the end of his 2-year-old season by the partnership.

A memorial service will be held for Ball from 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Oakview Funeral Home at 56 Lakeshore Road West in Oakville, Ontario. Visitation also will be held there Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m.

Jockey Calvin Borel is now a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild.

The three-time Kentucky Derby-winning rider who last year was inducted into the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame will hit the big screen on Wednesday. Borel plays himself in the new movie “50 to  1” that chronicles the story of Mine That Bird. The premiere is Wednesday in Albuquerque, N.M., with the film to open in the state on Friday, March 21.

As movie promotional stunts go, the heartland bus tour Jim Wilson has planned to generate interest in his Kentucky Derby fairytale “50 to 1” is pretty tame stuff. Unless, of course, at some point the bus breaks down and is rescued by the cast of “The Walking Dead.”

For the 2013 release of the Colin Farrell thriller “Dead Man Down,” the producers hired a viral ad company that staged a fake strangulation murder in an elevator and compiled a video of people reacting to the scene as the elevator doors opened. The ad was hilarious. The movie was a dud.

The Academy Award-winning producer Jim Wilson was watching the Kentucky Derby on a small television screen in his Los Angeles office in 2009, when the last-to-first burst of unlikely winner Mine That Bird seized his senses. For the past three years, Wilson has worked to bring the little gelding’s eternal moment to the big screen, and the result is the feature-length film “50 to 1” that opens in New Mexico on March 21.