The mutuel field, the 24th or “all others” option, closed Sunday as a lukewarm choice in Pool 3 of the 2017 Kentucky Derby Future Wager, while Unique Bella was a heavy favorite in the lone futures pool for the 2017 Kentucky Oaks.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The pick six paid $34,820 to four ticketholders at Santa Anita on Saturday, resulting in a two-day carryover of $29,846 in the single ticket jackpot pool for Sunday’s nine-race program.

The single ticket portion of the pool is paid out only if there is a single winning ticket in the pick six.

Saturday’s pick six began with carryovers of $33,758 in the main pick six pool and $7,233 in the single ticket jackpot portion from Friday’s program. Bettors added $197,524 to the pool on Saturday.

Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore would need approximately $300 million in renovations to be “economically competitive” with the two other tracks that host Triple Crown races - Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., and Belmont Park on Long Island, New York - according to a report released Friday by the Maryland Stadium Authority, a state agency.

A rule that will allow racetracks in California to use medication-based criteria to determine eligibility for races is re-opening the possibility that the Breeders’ Cup will attempt to implement event-specific medication rules when the Breeders’ Cup two-day event is held later this year at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club near San Diego.

There were no injuries to horses or humans reported as a result of a small fire in a tack room in Barn 61 at Belmont Park on Thursday night. Michelle Nevin has most of the horses stabled in that barn.

According to Glen Kozak, the New York Racing Association’s vice president of facilities/racing surfaces, some equipment was placed too close to an electric heater in a tack room, sparking the fire. The sprinkler system in the barn went off and doused the fire before the Elmont Fire Department arrived.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Handle at all California racetracks sustained a significant decline in January, a month in which wet conditions plagued the sport throughout the state.

According to figures released at Thursday’s California Horse Racing Board meeting, all-sources handle at Thoroughbred meetings at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita, the Quarter Horse and lower-level Thoroughbred meeting at Los Alamitos, and the Standardbred meeting at Cal-Expo was $219,250,713, a decline of 20 percent from January 2016.

The Breeders’ Cup and Upper Right Marketing, a retail merchandising company, have signed a multiyear agreement making Upper Right the exclusive Breeders’ Cup retailer for its branded merchandise and apparel, the Breeders’ Cup announced on Thursday.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Due to an inordinate amount of snowfall in Vancouver in early February, opening day at Hastings has been moved back one week. The 52-day meet was originally scheduled to begin April 16 but will now start April 23.

“The unpleasant weather we experienced at the start of February resulted in the majority of horses behind in their preseason preparations,” said Darren MacDonald, general manager at Hastings.

Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., will run 33 stakes races this year with total purses of $3,725,000, down from 41 stakes scheduled for last year’s meet with total purses of $4.65 million, according to a stakes schedule distributed by the track on Wednesday.

The stakes schedule is headed by the $1 million Haskell Invitational, the Grade 1 stakes restricted to 3-year-olds that will anchor a July 30 program with four other graded stakes. Monmouth’s other Grade 1, the $300,000 United Nations Stakes, will be held on July 1.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Trainer Otabek Umarov will have his suspension reduced from 10 years to five years under a settlement approved Tuesday by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.