The Permanently Disabled Jockeys’ Fund, a non-profit that provides monthly benefits to disabled riders, will hold its first-ever telethon on April 8, with jockeys appearing live on TVG throughout the afternoon and evening to raise money for the charity, the organization announced on Friday.

A provision in the New York state budget that would have allowed the New York Racing Association to run at night at Belmont Park in Elmont on Long Island has been taken off the table due to objections from the Standardbred industry, according to sources.

Claude P. Williams, a former columnist for Daily Racing Form who went on to hold key positions at racing commissions in Louisiana and Alabama, died Saturday due to brain injuries suffered in a recent fall, according to a family friend. He was 82.

Williams died at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge, La., according to information provided by Roger Heitzmann of the Louisiana Thoroughbred Breeders Association.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The Ontario government announced Friday a funding agreement that will give the province’s horse-racing industry $105 million annually for the next 19 years, beginning April 1, 2019.

The new agreement will replace the current Horse Racing Partnership Plan between the industry and the provincial government, which will enter the final year of its five-year term April 1. Under the Horse Racing Partnership Plan, the industry will receive $100 million from the government this year.

Warren B. Williamson, the California-based owner and breeder who raced the top-class but ill-fated mare Nashoba’s Key, died several days ago of natural causes following a recent surgery to repair a fractured hip, according to his longtime trainer, Carla Gaines. Williamson was 89.

The owner of a small non-profit horse-therapy center in Louisville, Ky., has been indicted on charges of devising a scheme to defraud the government, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.

The overall fatality rate for Thoroughbred races held in North America in 2017 inched up slightly to 1.61 per 1,000 starts, according to data released on Monday by The Jockey Club.

The increase from the 1.54 rate in 2016 reversed several years of declines, but the 4.5 percent rise was not considered statistically significant by Dr. Tim Parkin, the epidemiologist who studies the data. Since the data began being collected in 2009 in a project called the Equine Injury Database, the overall fatality rate has dropped from 2.00 per 1,000 starts.

Tom Benson, a businessman who owned the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans, died Thursday at age 90.

Benson’s wife, Gayle Benson, is the principal in GMB Racing, which began buying yearlings in 2014 and managed to get two of their first purchases, Mo Tom and Tom’s Ready, into the 2016 Kentucky Derby.

Benson, a native New Orleanian, contracted the flu in February and never recovered.

Gun Runner and Winx are top-rated horses in the first 2018 listing of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings.

Both horses are rated 129, Gun Runner for his Pegasus World Cup victory, Winx for her blowout score in the Chipping Norton Stakes, her first race of the year. While Winx has a full campaign ahead of her, Gun Runner has been retired to stud and made his career finale in the Pegasus. West Coast is third-highest rated at 124 for his second in the Pegasus and is likely to start as the favorite March 31 in the Dubai World Cup.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has said that the state needs to be “open-minded” when considering the legalization of casino-style gambling, according to local newspapers, in his first comments related to the authorization by the legislature last month of slot machine-like devices at Colonial Downs.