Further Ado, the runaway winner of the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes on Saturday at Keeneland who figures to be one of the favorites in the May 2 Kentucky Derby, closed at 17-1 in the final Kentucky Derby Future Wager pool, according to a list of odds released by Churchill Downs, the administrator of the pool.

The final Future Wager pool closed at 6 p.m. on Saturday, prior to the running of three major Derby preps, including the Blue Grass Stakes. Further Ado won the Blue Grass by 11 lengths and was assigned a 106 Beyer Speed Figure, the highest figure for any 3-year-old this year.

Trainer Jena Antonucci has been granted a stay of a 15-day suspension she recently received for a positive test for a controlled medication, according to racing officials.

Antonucci, who won the Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes in 2023 with Arcangelo, was notified of the stay on Friday, on the same day that racetracks were sent notices to allow her to enter and breeze horses, according to the officials.

Mike Battaglia, the morning-line maker at Churchill Downs in Louisville since 1974, a span of 51 Kentucky Derbies, will retire prior to the opening of Churchill’s spring meet on April 26, according to an announcement released by Churchill on Friday.

Battaglia, whose morning line has identified the favorite in 39 of his 51 Derbies, will hand the reins over to Nick Tammaro, a veteran handicapper and linemaker, Churchill said. The April 26 card will include a ceremony honoring Battglia, who was also the announcer at Churchill from 1977-1997.

Trainer Jena Antonucci has appealed a 15-day suspension handed down to her on March 30 for a positive finding of the controlled substance lidocaine, arguing that her horse was accidentally contaminated with the drug by a worker in her stable.

The appeal was filed on Tuesday with the Federal Trade Commission, two days after an arbitrator for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit ruled that Antonucci was the “absolute insurer” of the horse that tested positive. The appeal requests a stay of the suspension.

A bill allowing Kentucky racetracks to offer fixed-odds betting on their races to Kentucky residents passed the state legislature late on Wednesday night. The bill also bans The Jockey Club from imposing a cap on the number of mares that can be covered by a stallion.

The two provisions were part of a large gambling bill that also raised the legal age limit for making a sports bet in Kentucky from 18 to 21 and authorized betting on fantasy-betting contests.

It was unclear on Thursday morning if Kentucky tracks have immediate plans to offer fixed-odds bets on their races.

Equibase has begun adding the full gate-to-wire times of races to its official charts, the company announced on Thursday.

The gate-to-wire times include the run-up, which is an often widely varying distance that horses must reach after breaking from the gate before the official time of the race starts. Some horseplayers have been highly critical of the U.S. custom of using a run-up, which, depending on track configuration and surface, can vary between a few dozen feet to nearly a furlong in some rare cases.

The New York Racing Association plans to add signals from top-tier tracks to its daily racing broadcasts on networks associated with FOX and is exploring the creation of a broadcast channel that would provide round-the clock coverage of racing, officials for NYRA said on Wednesday.

A federal judge in Louisville has ruled that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority violated its enabling legislation when it used a formula that included purses in determining a track’s dues to the organization.

The ruling, by Benjamin Beaton of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, hands a symbolic victory to Churchill Downs Inc., which filed a lawsuit late in 2024 challenging the formula.

Equibase has changed its formula for assigning ratings to horses in a way that will significantly boost the rating for a horse that breaks its maiden within its first two starts, the company said on Wednesday.

Under the new formula, a horse that wins in its first or second start will receive “an upward adjustment to their rating that reflects the significance of that win,” Equibase said in a release. The previous formula was producing ratings that were “frequently lower relative to what the win actually demonstrated,” according to Equibase.

A national conservation group has secured an option to purchase Golden Gate Fields, the Bay Area racetrack owned by 1/ST Racing and Gaming that closed in 2024. The prospective new owner will seek to convert the 161-acre property into a park and recreational area if the purchase is completed.