The Belmont Stakes, with American Pharoah becoming the first horse in 37 years to sweep Thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, was selected as the 2015 sports event of the year by the Sports Business Journal.
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DRF Past Performances
A horse who won a maiden race in New York on Sunday despite having won three non-sanctioned races in China last year has raised questions in some quarters about the reporting of horses’ performances in foreign jurisdictions when they are imported to the U.S.
For the embattled racing industry in Maryland five years ago, there was probably nowhere to go but up.
Still, the recent resurgence in numbers posted by both the racing and breeding industries in Maryland, the site of this weekend’s Preakness Stakes, is leading to talk that the state might regain its standing on the national racing and breeding landscape, only five years after the industry was nearly given up for dead amid plummeting metrics and bitter infighting among the state’s racing factions.
The revamped Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Tuesday approved a new set of regulations that will increase the amount paid to jockeys for losing mounts in races in the state with purses or $50,000 or less.
The approval, by a unanimous vote, was the first direct action taken by the commission since it was revamped at the direction of Gov. Matt Bevin, who took office last December. Last month, Bevin named 11 new members to the commission, which was reduced from 15 members to 12.
The New York Racing Association announced Tuesday that it will launch a new national advance-deposit wagering platform in July. The ADW will be known as NYRA Bets and will take the place of its current platform, NYRA Rewards.
NYRA Bets will launch sometime in July, roughly coinciding with the opening of the Saratoga meet on July 22, according to Patrick McKenna, NYRA’s director of media relations/communications.
The Stronach Group, the owner of a handful of racetracks nationwide, including the two Thoroughbred tracks in Maryland, has reached an agreement to purchase Rosecroft Raceway, one of Maryland’s two harness tracks, from Penn National Gaming Inc.
The sale is expected to close this summer, according to The Stronach Group. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
Nyquist isn’t the only horse trainer Doug O’Neill is wheeling back in two weeks at Pimlico.
Land Over Sea, second to Cathryn Sophia in the Kentucky Oaks on May 6, heads a field of 14 entered Sunday for Friday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes for 3-year-old fillies going 1 1/8 miles.
The Black-Eyed Susan, which goes as race 11, is one of seven stakes on a 14-race card that begins at 11:30 a.m. Eastern on Friday billed as “Ultimate Girls Out,” an entire day dedicated to the spirit and strength of women, according to a Pimlico release.
An error by Am Tote forced four horses who raced Friday at Belmont Park to run for purse money only, meaning they participated in their respective races, but wagering was not accepted on them.
According to Steve Lewandowski, the steward for the New York State Gaming Commission, Am Tote published on Friday the numbers of the horses who were scratched Thursday. Lewandowski said wagering had begun before the error was noticed, so the stewards decided to allow the horses to run for purse money only, thus not penalizing the owners or trainers of those horses.
The final rating for the Kentucky Derby broadcast on NBC on Saturday was a 9.0, according to the network, down 6.3 percent from the 9.6 final rating for the broadcast last year.
The rating for the Derby dipped despite the surge in media coverage last year surrounding the post-Derby campaign of American Pharoah, who became the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years when he went on to win the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.