Joe Wilson, the chief operating officer of Parx Racing near Philadelphia, was elected president of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations during a meeting of the organization’s board Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the TRA announced Thursday.
Wilson succeeds Scott Wells, the general manager of Remington Park in Oklahoma City, who was elected president in 2013. Wilson, who has been employed by Parx Racing’s parent company for 17 years, will serve a two-year term as president.
Virginia veterinary health officials have placed a training center in Fauquier County under quarantine because a horse who recently resided there tested positive for the equine herpesvirus after shipping to Florida.
The State Veterinarian’s Office of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said the unidentified facility was placed under quarantine Tuesday, one day after being notified by Florida officials about the positive test. The horse is now at Payson Park in Indiantown, Fla., and that training center was placed on a 21-day quarantine on Monday.
The Juddmonte Farms-owned Grade 1 winner Flintshire, trained in Europe by Andre Fabre, will be based in North America this year with trainer Chad Brown.
Brown said that Flintshire, a 6-year-old son of Dansili, was expected to arrive at his Belmont Park barn on Saturday after being released from quarantine.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita will cease turf racing in early June on the hillside turf course and in mid-June on the oval portion of the turf course to replace the surface, track officials announced late Wednesday.
The track plans to install a Bermuda grass surface in advance of an autumn meeting highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 4-5. The autumn meeting starts on Sept. 30.
Bernard “Bernie” Hettel, a longtime racing official who has headed the Virginia Racing Commission since 2011, has resigned from his position as executive secretary and will step down at a later date, the racing commission announced on Wednesday.
Hettel said in a statement distributed by the commission that he would be moving to Kentucky, where he has “business and family interests.” Hettel had previously served as Kentucky’s chief state steward and the executive director of Kentucky’s racing commission.
A federal judge in Kentucky has thrown out a patent-infringement lawsuit that the manufacturer of Instant Racing machines filed against its only competitor.
The dismissal of the suit closes one chapter in a dispute entangling RaceTech, the manufacturer of the machines, and Kentucky Downs, a track in Franklin, Ky. RaceTech filed the patent-infringement suit last spring, shortly after Kentucky Downs replaced the company’s machines with those manufactured by Encore Gaming, a company that is co-owned by a partner in Kentucky Downs, Ray Reid.
The political action committee administered by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association in 2015 raised $276,742 from racing-industry members and distributed $288,500 to legislators, their associated PACs, and unassociated political groups, according to a report prepared by the NTRA and distributed on Wednesday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - An unidentified horse has tested positive for the equine herpesvirus at Payson Park, forcing the Indiantown, Fla., training facility to be quarantined under Florida Department of Agriculture regulations for at least the next 21 days.
As a result of the quarantine, no horses will be allowed to ship out of Payson Park for the next three weeks. There are approximately 480 horses stabled at Payson Park.
Jeffrey Cannizzo will replace Chester Broman in a non-voting seat reserved for the New York Thoroughbred Breeders on the board of the New York Racing Association, Cannizzo confirmed on Tuesday.
Cannizzo has been the executive director of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders Inc. since 2008.
Broman, an owner-breeder who has held positions on the NYRA board since 1998, has filled the NYTB’s seat since the board was reorganized in 2012. Cannizzo said that Broman decided to step down because it had “become time for a transition.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Daily Racing Form’s Joe Nevills and Nicole Russo have been named Sovereign Award finalists for writing for their story on the popular Canadian-bred sire Smart Strike, entitled: “Smart Strike Remembered.”
The other finalists in the writing category are Curtis Stock (“A Love of Horses,” published in the Edmonton Journal) and Paul Wiecek (“Turbulence at the Track,” published in the Winnipeg Free Press).
