Hall of Famer Gil Rowntree, one of the most successful trainers in Canadian horse racing history, passed away on Sunday at age 92.
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Sat, 05/23/2026 - 13:49
Claret Beret, the leading older dirt female in Daily Racing Form’s latest division ratings, died suddenly from a possible cardiac episode back at her barn shortly after a routine workout at the Palm Meadows training center on Friday.
The Arkansas Racing Commission on Thursday unanimously approved Oaklawn Park’s racing calendar for next season. In changes, the meet will mostly be comprised of three-day race weeks instead of last season’s four, and will start in November rather than December.
Oaklawn was approved for a 65-date meet from Nov. 27, 2026, through May 1, 2027.
The New York Racing Association will offer significant purse increases when Belmont Park opens for racing this September.
Purses for a first-level allowance/optional-claiming race will increase from $88,000 to $105,000 and a second-level allowance/optional-claiming races increase from $90,000 to $108,000, according to a release put out Thursday afternoon by the NYRA. An open allowance, without any claiming condition, goes up from $100,000 to $115,000.
Churchill Downs has doubled the purse of the June 27 Stephen Foster Handicap, making the Grade 1 mid-summer race for older horses worth $2 million, among the richest purses in the U.S.
The Stephen Foster will anchor a card this year that has six other stakes races, three of them graded. The race is attracting interest this year from 2025 Horse of the Year Sovereignty, 2025 Dubai World Cup winner Magnitude, and Oaklawn Handicap winner White Abarrio, among other Grade 1 winners.
An arbitrator has reduced a two-year suspension handed down to a Washington-based trainer to four months on the grounds that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority failed to issue an adequate alert to horsemen about the possibility that a supplement contained a prohibited substance.
Monmouth Park in Oceanside, N.J., is joining the ranks of racetracks that have slashed takeouts on some multi-race bets.
The takeout for the track’s rolling pick 3s and daily doubles will be cut to 15 percent, the track said on Friday, effective with the Saturday card. The track had cut the takeout on both the late pick 3 and final daily double on every card at the beginning of the meet on May 9.
The state of Maryland is considering whether to exercise an option that would allow it to match an $85 million deal made by Churchill Downs Inc. to buy a package of intellectual property rights related to the Preakness Stakes, according to officials with knowledge of the process.
The option is contained in a state law passed in 2024 that allowed Maryland to take title to the home of the Preakness, Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, from 1/ST Racing and Gaming, according to the officials. The option would need to be exercised by mid-June.
Rick Baedeker, a former president of Hollywood Park and executive director of the California Horse Racing Board, announced his retirement from the sport at the racing board’s monthly meeting in Sacramento, Calif., on Wednesday.
Baedeker said that later this month he will leave his current position as executive director of the Southern California Off-Track Wagering Network, which coordinates simulcast locations through the region.
“It’s been 50 years,” Baedeker said of his career. “I’ve had a lot of different roles in that time.”
Horses racing at tracks under the jurisdiction of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority had a fatality rate of 0.95 per 1,000 starts in the first quarter of 2026, HISA said in a quarterly report issued on Tuesday.
The first-quarter racing fatality rate is a slight decline from the overall 2025 rate, which was 1.04 deaths per 1,000 starts. The fatality rate in the first quarter of 2025 was 0.85 deaths per 1,000 starts, while the overall 2024 rate was 0.90 deaths per 1,000 races, the lowest rate ever recorded at U.S. tracks.