Suffolk Downs in East Boston, Mass., will hold six days of live racing next summer and early fall under a plan approved by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission on Thursday.

The plan is double the number of race dates that Suffolk ran this year following an agreement between the track and the state’s horsemen’s group to put on three cards in the fall. Purse distribution for the six dates will be approximately $500,000 a day, according to planners, roughly equal to the purse distribution for the three dates in 2015.

Chris Wittstruck, writing for the U.S. Trotting Association website, won the 2015 Stanley Bergstein Writing Award, which is sponsored and presented by Barry Irwin and Team Valor. The award was announced Thursday night at a ceremony at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky sales pavilion in Lexington.

Julian Pimentel, a prominent Maryland-based jockey, was charged with assault by Anne Arundel County, Md., police last week after being involved in an altercation at a local restaurant, according to a police report.

The New York State Gaming Commission has reduced a $15,000 fine it levied on jockey Victor Espinoza for wearing unauthorized promotional material during the Travers Stakes at Saratoga in August to $2,500, according to a ruling released following Espinoza’s appeal of the decision.

Trainer Maria Borell has filed a lawsuit against the owners of Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Runhappy,  seeking nearly $120,000 from the colt’s earnings in compensation along with other payments, according to a copy of the suit provided by her attorney.

Borell was the trainer of Runhappy when the colt won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Oct. 31 at Keeneland Racecourse in Kentucky. Borell, 32, was fired the day after the win.

Roy Sedlacek, the New York trainer who was summarily suspended after two of his horses tested positive for a rare and synthetic illegal drug, testified during a Tuesday hearing into the positives that he had administered a substance to the two horses on race day that he thought contained an illegal drug even if it was not the drug that regulators ultimately detected, according to officials with the New York Gaming Commission who attended the hearing.

Fair Grounds Racecourse in New Orleans has a new look in its administrative hierarchy for its 2015-16 racing season.

General manager Howard “H” Withers departed this past summer after two seasons on the job, and Fair Grounds will no longer have a distinct general manager position. Jason Boulet retains his job as racing secretary but has been promoted to senior director of racing, with Brad Bryant now the senior director of operations. Bryant’s focus, according to track president Tim Bryant, will be on “front-of-the-house” functions like pari-mutuels and guest services.

Roy Sedlacek, a New York-based trainer, has been suspended indefinitely by New York stewards after two of his horses tested positive for a powerful banned synthetic drug after racing at Belmont Park, according to state records.

Texas racing is in business through at least the month of February.

The state’s legislative budget board on Friday gave the Texas Racing Commission authority to temporarily fund its operations for 90 days. The new extension will follow the current funding plan that ends Nov. 30.

Texas racing was facing a potential shutdown Dec. 1. The funding conflict stems from an August vote by the commission not to repeal rules for historical racing it put in place in 2014.

On Friday afternoon, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced new appointments to the Texas Racing Commission. The panel is operating on a temporary funding plan that runs through Nov. 30. The new appointments are Margaret Martin and Rolando Pablos, while Gary Aber was reappointed to the commission, according to a release. Their terms expire Feb. 1, 2021.