Jeannine Edwards, a longtime racing broadcast reporter who recently retired, will be given the Special Award of Merit by the Maryland Jockey Club in the lead-up to the MJC’s Preakness Stakes two weeks from now, the racing organization announced on Monday.

The Kentucky Derby and its undercard just keep getting bigger.

Fresh off of records set last year, the Derby this year attracted $148 million in bets, a 7.5 percent increase, while the entire 14-race card broke the $200 million mark for the second straight year, at $223.7 million, a jump of 7.8 percent over the full-card number last year, according to charts of the races produced by Equibase. (Daily Racing Form figures differ from those released by Churchill Downs because DRF does not include future-pool wagering numbers. The future pools close weeks before the Derby.)

The Kentucky Derby broadcast on NBC on Saturday posted a 9.1 overnight rating and a 21 share, according to the television network, with both figures representing significant declines from last year.

The 9.1 overnight rating was a 13 percent decline from the 10.5 rating posted last year, while the 21 share was an 8.7 percent decline from the 23 share posted last year. While the overnight rating is a numerical measure of the number of people watching a broadcast, share is a measure of the percentage of televisions in use that are tuned into a broadcast.

Betting on the 80-day Fair Grounds meet that ended March 31 showed slight increases compared with the 2016-17 season, but that is not especially good news for the historic New Orleans racetrack.

Last year’s Fair Grounds meet took a major hit when the equine herpesvirus was discovered in the backstretch population, and all-sources average daily handle dropped more than 8 percent from the 2015-16 season. And though the track did better, this season’s business didn’t come close to rebounding to 2015-16 levels, according to the Louisiana Racing Commission.

NBC will debut a wire-cam that runs 15-18 feet above the racing surface of the entire backstretch at Churchill Downs during its broadcasts this week of the Kentucky Derby and other races from Churchill Downs, officials of the network said this week.

The wire-cam is secured by a 1,400-foot long cable that runs down the backstretch, and it will be capable of traveling up to 80 miles per hour, officials said during a conference call on Wednesday previewing the live racing coverage scheduled for Friday and Saturday on NBC and NBCSN.

A Chicago-based group and its partners have finalized their purchase of Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va., according to the partners, an acquisition made possible by legislation this year allowing the owner of the track to operate slot-machine-like devices at the track and at as many as 10 facilities across the state.

Frank Stronach, the influential owner-breeder who owns The Stronach Group racing company, will be presented with the second annual Dinny Phipps Award by its sponsor, the Grayson-Jockey Club Foundation, the organization announced on Tuesday.

Stronach will receive the award during a Grayson-Jockey Club fund-raising event on June 7 at Bryant Park Grill in New York, the organization said. The award was inaugurated last year to honor the late Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps, the former chairman of The Jockey Club, and his efforts to promote horse welfare and safety.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – LGC, an accredited drug-testing laboratory in Lexington, has told its clients that it will no longer conduct drug-testing of horses starting later this year, according to Kentucky racing officials.

Ron Luniewski, the president of the account-wagering company XpressBet since 2002, will be leaving the company effective immediately, according to several officials within the company’s parent organization who spoke on Friday.

The Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series - the slate of designated races that offer guaranteed berths to the winners for one of the 14 Breeders’ Cup races to be held in November - will consist of 82 races this year, one more than last year, according to the finalized schedule of the series released by Breeders’ Cup on Wednesday.