Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky has signed a bill that grants Breeders’ Cup Ltd. a tax exemption on its handle any time the two-day event is held at a Kentucky track.

Joseph Appelbaum was recently elected president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, and on Friday it was announced he has been elected the head of the affiliate’s national umbrella organization.

The vote to elect Appelbaum as president of the National Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association was unanimous, according to the organization. He succeeds Richard Violette in the position. Violette was also the previous president of NYTHA.

Appelbaum is an owner and breeder who was first elected to the NYTHA board of directors three years ago.

The British-based parent company of Television Games Network reported strong revenue growth for TVG in 2017, but the overall results for its U.S. operations were dragged down by significant increases in expenses at other business units in the U.S.

An Illinois man has filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey-based Standardbred trainer seeking more than $31,000 in compensation for bets he lost in a 2016 Meadowlands harness race because the winner of the race tested positive for a banned drug.

Bill Nader, the former New York Racing Association executive, is headed back to Hong Kong.

A little over two years after leaving his position as executive director of racing for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Nader has been re-hired as the association’s director of racing, business operations, he said. He leaves on Friday to start work on Monday, March 12, under a new three-year contract.

John Brunetti, the South Florida real-estate mogul and horse owner who has owned Hialeah Park for the past 40 years, died on Friday at his Florida home in Boca Raton, according to friends of the family. Brunetti, 87, had recently had a cancerous lung removed and had been in failing health for several weeks.

​The two races this week in England that are part of Churchill Downs’s new European Road to the Kentucky Derby were postponed because of wintry conditions.

The Patton Stakes at Dundalk, originally scheduled for March 2, will be run on March 9, while the March 1 Road to the Kentucky Derby Conditions Stakes at Kempton Park now is set for March 7.

Prominent owner Rick Porter recently announced the launch of the National Thoroughbred Welfare Organization, with the aim to ensure the welfare of Thoroughbreds leaving the racetrack by stopping the pipeline of horses available for purchase by slaughter buyers.

Kentucky agriculture officials announced Thursday they had lifted a quarantine of a barn at Turfway Park that had several horses test positive for the equine herpesvirus in early February.

Horses in that barn may now train with the general horse population and resume racing. Also, shipping restrictions between Turfway and other tracks meant to prevent the spread of the virus can be eased as Turfway prepares to host its biggest day of racing. On March 17, Turfway runs the Grade 3, $200,000 Jeff Ruby Steaks, a Kentucky Derby prep formerly known as the Spiral.

A bill that gives Breeders’ Cup Ltd. a tax break anytime the two-day event is held at a Kentucky racetrack passed unanimously in the state Senate on Wednesday, and the legislation is now headed to the desk of Gov. Matt Bevin.

The bill, which was sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans, would exempt Breeders’ Cup from paying state taxes on its pari-mutuel handle, an exemption that was worth $750,000 to the organization the last time it held its event in the state, according to a statement accompanying the bill.