Two West Virginia-bred stakes scheduled for August at Charles Town will now be run on the track’s Race for the Ribbon card Sept. 17.
The $50,000 Sadie Hawkins, a seven-furlong race for fillies and mares, was to be run Aug. 13. The $50,000 Frank Gall Memorial, a seven-furlong race for 3-year-olds and up, was scheduled for Aug. 20. Those dates would have conflicted with a pair of new West Virginia-bred stakes that Mountaineer will hold on its West Virginia Derby card Aug. 6.
John Hendrickson, the husband of the prominent Thoroughbred owner and breeder Marylou Whitney, has resigned his position as an adviser for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the New York Racing Association’s board of directors, according to a horse-racing advocacy group based in Saratoga Springs.
ARCADIA, Calif.- Santa Anita is adjusting its first post to 1:30 p.m. Pacific, beginning Thursday for the remainder of the spring-summer meeting through July 10.
The only exception will be Saturday, when first post time is noon to coincide with the simulcast of the Belmont Stakes program in New York.
Track officials are hoping an earlier post time will boost handle. Santa Anita marketing director Nate Newby said the previous first post time of 2 p.m. produced situations when handle on late races did not live up to expectations on occasions.
Wagering on U.S. races in May fell nearly 4 percent on a sharp decline in the number of races held at U.S. tracks during the month, according to figures released by Equibase on Saturday.
Wagering during May was $1.22 billion, down 3.95 percent from wagering of $1.27 billion during May 2015. This year, May had nine weekend dates, while last year, May had 10 weekend dates. Handle on weekend dates is usually far higher than on weekdays.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has made three additional appointments to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, bringing the body up to 15 members, his office announced late on Friday afternoon.
The appointments are Dr. Foster Northrup, a racetrack practitioner who was a member of the commission from 2008 to 2014; Kiki Courtelis, the chief executive officer of Town and Country Farms in Georgetown, Ky.; and James Gatewood Bell, a consultant with Cromwell Bloodstock.
The stakeholders in the New Mexico racing industry are scheduled to come together this summer at either Ruidoso Downs or The Downs at Albuquerque to discuss a host of different topics, including a proposal that would suspend horses who test positive for certain substances. The date of the meeting is still being determined, said Izzy Trejo, the new executive director of the New Mexico Racing Commission.
“It’s going to bring all the issues to the table to sort them out,” said Trejo, adding that the summit idea was brought forward by the management of Sunland Park.
A New York Assembly committee on Thursday joined with its Senate counterpart in advancing a bill that would give the New York Racing Association control over its board of directors.
The bill, sponsored by Carrie Woerner, a Democrat representing Saratoga Springs, and co-sponsored by Gary Pretlow, a Democrat from Mt. Vernon, was approved Thursday by the Assembly’s Racing and Wagering Committee, one day after a gambling committee in the Senate did the same to an identical bill. Pretlow is chairman of the Assembly committee.
A New York Senate committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would return control of the board of directors of the New York Racing Association to the association itself.
The bill, introduced last week by Sen. John Bonacic, was advanced Wednesday on schedule out of the Senate Racing, Wagering, and Gaming Committee. Bonacic is the chair of the committee.
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The stewards of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission have revoked the license of the owner-trainer Otabek Umarov for 10 years after he refused to allow commission personnel to pull an out-of-competition sample from one of his horses and directed an employee to remove a stakes-winning horse from his barn.