Parx Racing has moved back the beginning of its 2016 meet from Feb. 13 to Feb. 20 because the installation of a new safety rail has taken longer than expected and delayed the reopening of the track for training.
Parx concluded its 2015 meet on Dec. 22 and then closed the track for training Jan. 3 to install a new inner rail around the dirt surface. The project originally was estimated to take two to three weeks, according to Sam Elliott, the director of racing at Parx.
The five richest stakes for Ohio-breds will be contested at Mahoning Valley Race Course near Youngstown in 2016.
For the first time, the Best of Ohio series in the fall will be held at Mahoning Valley. The five Best of Ohio stakes, worth $150,000 apiece, will be contested on Saturday, Oct. 29.
Ohio plans to rotate the Best of Ohio series among Mahoning Valley, ThistleDown Racino in suburban Cleveland, and Belterra Park in Cincinnati.
La Verdad is going out on top.
Two weeks after being named champion female sprinter for 2015 and three weeks after winning the Interborough Stakes at Aqueduct, La Verdad was officially retired from racing by owner Sheila Rosenblum and trainer Linda Rice.
La Verdad left Belmont Park on Saturday and arrived at Gainsborough Farm in Versailles, Ky., on Sunday. She will be bred to Medaglia d’Oro.
The 17thDaily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship is in the books. Paul Matties of Ballston Spa, N.Y., topped a field of 629 entries to win the $800,000 first-place prize and an Eclipse Award as Horseplayer of the Year at Treasure Island Las Vegas.
The NHC offered record overall cash and prizes totaling $2,778,760, including the money awarded for the NHC Tour.
After not being allowed to ride since Jan. 15, jockey Nik Juarez resumed his career Friday at Laurel Park, finishing second in the fourth race on a horse trained by his father, Calixto Juarez.
Juarez, 22, is named on a horse in the 10th race at Gulfstream Park on Sunday for trainer Marcus Vitali, and will be relocating to Florida. At Gulfstream, he will be represented by Jay Rushing Jr., who was his agent for the final part of the Monmouth Park meet last summer. Juarez finished third in the Monmouth standings.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association announced today that NHCQualify.com, the official online qualifying site of the National Handicapping Championship, will offer a new awards pool and a $1 million bonus tied to tournament play on NHCQualify.com in 2016.
Oaklawn Park announced Thursday it has banned horses from Arizona and New Mexico due to equine herpesvirus positives at Sunland Park and a suspected positive at Turf Paradise. The restriction includes horses who have been in Arizona or New Mexico since Jan. 1.
The horses are banned from the grounds immediately and until further notice, according to Oaklawn director of racing David Longinotti.
The Arizona Department of Agriculture on Thursday placed a 21-day quarantine on the backstretch at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, one day after a horse was euthanized with symptoms consistent with equine herpesvirus, the contagious disease that has shut down Sunland Park in neighboring New Mexico, according to track officials.
Led by Eclipse Award winner Nyquist as well as a pair of prominent prospects – Greenpointcrusader and Mohaymen – who are scheduled to race Saturday in the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park, a total of 368 3-year-olds are early nominees to this year’s Triple Crown, Churchill Downs announced Thursday.
Mike Gonzalez, a veteran jockey agent, was arrested and charged with illegally accessing the New York Racing Association’s computer system 170 times over a 15-month period, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Queens County, N.Y., district attorney’s office.
Gonzalez was charged with 170 counts of computer trespass and 170 counts of second-degree tampering with a sports contest. If convicted, he could face up to four years in prison.
