Retired Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron will be honored with the Laffit Pincay Jr. Award for distinguished service to racing in a ceremony Sunday at Del Mar.

The award is presented annually to a person who serves the sport with integrity, dedication, and distinction. Retired Hall of Fame jockey Pincay is scheduled to present the award.

McCarron, 61, won 7,141 races. He retired in 2002, and currently operates the North American Racing Academy for jockeys in Kentucky. McCarron and Pincay rode against each other for much of their careers.

The trainers’ awards at the upcoming Timonium meet have been doubled to $20,000 after the Maryland State Fair board put up $10,000 in an attempt to bolster racing at the seven-day meet.

According to the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association website, trainer Ferris Allen, who serves on both the fair board and the board of the MTHA, suggested increasing the trainers’ bonus as a way to increase horsemen’s participation at the meet.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Mother Nature, so kind to Saratoga the previous two summers, was far less so last weekend, resulting in at least a temporary halt to a potentially record-setting summer for the New York Racing Association.

Through the first 22 days of the 40-day meet, all-sources handle was $332,885,255 on Saratoga’s races, a 3.3 percent decline from last year’s figure of $344,347,769 at this point in the meet. Ontrack handle was $79,430,111, an 8.5 percent decline from last year’s figure of $86,774,373.

Barbara Banke, owner of Stonestreet Stables, and Michael O’Farrell Jr., owner of Ocala Stud in Florida, have been elected to the board of stewards of The Jockey Club, the organization announced Wednesday.

Banke and O’Farrell were elected to fill the spots vacated by the expiration of the terms of Stella Thayer, owner of Tampa Bay Downs, and Peter S. Willmott, current chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The New York Racing Franchise Oversight Board on Tuesday approved a plan devised by the New York Racing Association outlining the company’s long-term plans for renovations at its Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York.

The board approved the document, entitled the “Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement,” by a unanimous vote at the Tuesday meeting. The document was initially presented in draft form to the oversight board in 2015, followed by public hearings and reviews by other state agencies.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Chris Scherf, the longtime head of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations who led the organization through successes, failures, and sporadic turmoil, will retire in October after 27 years as executive vice president of the racetrack trade group, the TRA announced Friday night after a board meeting in Saratoga Springs.

Hank Zeitlin, the former president and chief operating officer of Equibase, will succeed Scherf, the TRA said. Zeitlin resigned his positions at Equibase last December.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Horse racing may not appear to have much, if anything, in common with mixed martial arts. Still, an official with that sport’s most prominent league will attempt to lay out its common ground with racing on Sunday as a guest of The Jockey Club at its Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing in Saratoga Springs.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Racing lobbyists remain optimistic that the U.S. Treasury will revise how parimutuel winnings are treated for tax-reporting and withholding requirements, but they said the revisions remain a low priority for the agency because of larger issues within the complex U.S. tax code.

Greg Means, a lobbyist for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, said at a briefing Thursday night in Saratoga Springs that the hoped-for revisions remain a top priority for the NTRA. However, he said it is hard to predict when or if Treasury will act.

Wagering through Betfair’s New Jersey-based exchange-wagering system that was launched this spring has averaged approximately $150,000 a week in its first three months and appears to be declining on a weekly basis, according to figures provided this week by the New Jersey Racing Commission.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Racing’s two most prominent daily fantasy sites have shut off New York residents from winning cash in any of their contests, citing the recent approval of legislation in the state that contained language barring horse-racing fantasy contests despite explicitly authorizing the contests on nearly all other sports.