Equibase, the racing data company owned by a partnership of racetracks and The Jockey Club, has entered into a partnership to help develop wearable technologies for racehorses with Stable Analytics, a company that is currently testing out a biometric sensor, the two companies announced on Thursday.
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority has appointed 16 veterinarians to its new Veterinary Advisory Committee, which will begin meeting early in 2025 to provide feedback to the authority’s executives and other standing committees.
The 16 appointees include veterinarians in both private and regulatory roles. They were appointed to terms ranging from 18 months to three years in order “to ensure a dynamic, evolving group and maximize opportunities for future participation,” HISA said in a release.
The American Turf Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile grass race restricted to 3-year-olds at Churchill Downs, will be run as a Grade 1 in 2025, while the Alfred G. Vanderbilt, a six-furlong dirt race at Saratoga, was downgraded from a Grade 1 to a Grade 2 for next year, according to a list distributed on Wednesday by the American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association.
A face-to-head collision with a loose horse prior to Sunday’s second race at Los Alamitos forced starter Gary Brinson to the sidelines – but only for several hours.
Brinson, 76, was briefly hospitalized on Sunday afternoon, needing stitches to close a wound under an eyebrow, and to undergo a precautionary CT scan.
The end of the Golden State Racing meeting at Pleasanton on Wednesday, and the absence of racing dates in Northern California for the foreseeable future, has led veteran trainer Steve Specht into retirement.
Specht, who turns 75 later this month, said that Crown Magic, entered in Wednesday’s seventh race at Pleasanton, would be his final runner.
“I’m done,” he said on Wednesday morning. “I’ll be sitting at home by the fireside.”
The racing-fatality rate at racetracks under the jurisdiction of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority during the third quarter of this year was 0.93 per 1,000 starts, according to figures published by HISA on Tuesday.
The 0.93 rate was a 21 percent decline from the racing fatality rate at HISA tracks in the third quarter of last year, when the rate was 1.18 per 1,000 starts, according to the organization. It was the third consecutive quarter in which the rate declined compared to the same quarter in the year prior.
The New York State Gaming Commission has approved a plan to migrate Catskill OTB’s existing wagering accounts to Suffolk OTB, commission officials said at a meeting on Monday.
The approval came after Catskill OTB, a small public-benefit company serving the Hudson Valley, announced in mid-October that it planned to cease taking wagers as of Dec. 1 and would allow existing Catskill OTB account holders to “access” their accounts until Dec. 15.
Thoroughbred racing officials in Texas are confident that they will be able to re-apply for $2.5 million in purse bonuses available to statebred horses in 2025 after a request for the money was rejected on Wednesday at a Texas Racing Commission meeting.
On the backstretch or during an afternoon at the races, a person did not travel far before crossing paths with trainer Eddie Truman at a Southern California track.
Truman was seemingly everywhere, often stopping to visit with people of all walks of life, from stable employees to horse owners, frequently sharing a story that ended with his infectious laugh.
The organization founded by Thoroughbred owner Mike Repole to press for change in racing is holding discussions with racing constituencies to put in place mandatory funding mechanisms for aftercare efforts, the executive director of the organization, Pat Cummings, said during a panel at the Global Symposium on Racing on Wednesday.
