The Virginia Racing Commission at a meeting on Thursday awarded racing and gambling licenses to the group that purchased Colonial Downs earlier this year, putting the New Kent track on schedule to open for an abbreviated but rich meet of live racing in August of next year.

A bill that would send $20 million annually from the New Jersey General Fund to Thoroughbred and Standardbred purses and breeder awards has passed out of a state Senate subcommittee.

The bill would provide $10 million each year for the next five years to subsidize overnight purses at Monmouth Park, with $7.6 million going to purses at the Meadowlands and Freehold Raceway. The remainder would go to boost breeder awards in the state.

A total teardown and rebuild of Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore to make the track “the ideal venue to host the Preakness Stakes” would cost a minimum of $424 million, according to a study conducted by the Maryland Stadium Authority in consultation with the track’s owner, The Stronach Group.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A pilot project to use GPS technology to time workouts conducted in September and October at Keeneland Racecourse in Kentucky has proved the system can work in the future with a larger workload, the administrators of the project said on Wednesday.

Golden Gate Fields reported a 19 percent gain in all-sources handle at its fall meet compared to last year’s fall meet. The 30-day fall meet ended on Sunday.

This is the second consecutive year of double-digit handle growth during the fall meet at the Albany, Calif., racetrack, according to track reports, and follows gains at this year’s summer and winter-spring meets.

Betting at the fall meet, boosted by increases in out-of-state and off-track betting, hit $99.7 million this year, compared to $83.6 million last year, according to a track release.

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Tuesday placed three drugs on its prohibited substances list following positive findings for two of the substances in horses that raced in the state this fall.

The two positives were both reported to commission staff in September by the commission’s testing laboratory, one for cannabidiol, which is widely available and marketed as a pain reliever to humans, and the other for cardarine, a drug that was developed to prevent tumors but has now been repurposed among internet pharmacies as a purported stamina builder.

Tom Hammond, the veteran television host, and the late Joe Burnham, a cinematographer, have been selected for induction into the National Museum of Racing’s Media Roll of Honor, according to the museum.

Hammond, a two-time Eclipse Award winner who anchored NBC’s racing broadcasts for more than 30 years, and Burnham, who had a five-decade career filming racing and its stars, will join the ranks of 20 other individuals inducted into the Media Roll of Honor since it was established in 2010.

The New York Gaming Commission on Monday approved a rule allowing tracks to apply for temporary exemptions to a regulation requiring that purses be no more than two times the claiming price in a race.

Since opening up a division on the New York Racing Association circuit in the spring of 2017, trainer Robertino Diodoro has won 69 races and his horses have earned just less than $3 million in purses.

Has that resulted in him making money?

“I don’t think so,” said Diodoro, whose commissions on those purse earnings would total about $300,000.

William Perry, a longtime leading trainer in New England and Florida who trained the Grade 1 winner and millionaire Formal Gold, died on Thursday, according to friends. Perry, 71, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease more than a decade ago, and died in hospice care in Naples, Fla., surrounded by family.

Perry, who retired from training in 2006, won 1,438 races from 6,672 starts over a 30-year training career. His best horse was Formal Gold, who won eight of 16 starts, including the 1997 Woodward Stakes, and $1.53 million in purse earnings.