Officials at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., on Wednesday released the stakes schedule for the 2016 spring meet with minimal changes from last year, when the Blue Grass Stakes was moved a week farther out from the Kentucky Derby.

Once again, the Grade 1, $1 million Blue Grass will be the meet highlight, with its 92nd running on the first Saturday of the 16-day meet, April 9, four weeks prior to the May 7 Derby. The 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass, which had been run three weeks before the Derby for nearly 30 years, is one of five graded stakes on the April 9 card.

Jennie Rees, the longtime horse racing reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal, has been named the 2015 Eclipse Award winner for feature/commentary writing, and her colleague, columnist Tim Sullivan, has been named the Eclipse winner for news/enterprise writing, the award administrators announced on Tuesday.

Handle on U.S. races in 2015 was up slightly compared to wagering in 2014 despite a sharp decline in the number of races held during the year, according to figures released on Tuesday by Equibase.

All-sources handle on races held at U.S. racetracks was up 1.2 percent, according to the figures, from $10.55 billion in 2014 to $10.68 billion in 2015. The jump was the first uptick in wagering on U.S. races since 2012, and only the second increase since 2006, when handle began sharply contracting on the sport and racetracks were holding roughly 15,000 more races a year.

Ramon Preciado, the leading trainer at Parx Racing the past two years, had two clenbuterol positives at Delaware Park last summer and has been fined $1,500 and suspended 21 days by the Delaware Racing Commission.

Preciado’s first positive came in the first race Aug. 26, when Trouble Kid won a $25,000 starter-allowance race by nine lengths. Trouble Kid’s time of 1:02.58 was a track record at Delaware Park. His record will be rescinded, and the former track record holder at the distance, New Yawker, will be reinstated.

STICKNEY, Ill. – Betting handle at Hawthorne tumbled again during the fall-winter racing season that ended Saturday, with all-sources average daily handle down more than 20 percent after a rebound season a year ago.

Hawthorne raced 49 complete programs (one card was canceled after a single race) during a meet that began Oct. 2 and averaged just $1,680,760 per card in all-sources handle, a decrease of about 22 percent from the previous fall-winter meet, a 51-day season that averaged $2,145,486.

Mary Simon, a racing historian and writer, has been named the Eclipse Award winner in the audio/multimedia Internet category for a piece that ran on the Daily Racing Form website examining 1915 Kentucky Derby winner Regret and her connections, according to the administrators of the awards.

Portland Meadows canceled Monday’s 14-race card, which was scheduled to mark the debut of the track’s National Racing Club Sweepstakes Rainbow 6 Jackpot, due to freezing rain and snow.

The horsemen-led company that operates Monmouth Park in New Jersey has joined an increasingly crowded landscape by lending the racetrack’s name to a daily fantasy sports site.

Laurel Park raised the minimum wagering amount for both the Rainbow 6 and the super high five beginning New Year’s Day.

The Rainbow 6 is now a 20-cent wager, the same as its sister track of Gulfstream Park. It had previously been a 10-cent bet.

The minimum wager on the track’s super high five has been doubled to $1 from 50 cents.

The higher minimum makes the wagers more difficult to hit and should build carryover pools quicker.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Trainer Tim Yakteen has been fined $3,000 and suspended seven days after one of his runners tested in excess of the permitted level of the tranquilizer acepromazine in a stakes at Del Mar last summer, according to a ruling issued Thursday by Santa Anita stewards.

Yakteen said on Thursday afternoon that he does not plan to appeal the penalties.

Yakteen’s suspension runs from Jan. 11-17, during which he cannot enter or run horses and cannot be present at his stable.