Los Alamitos and Santa Anita are trying to settle a conflict over which track will host racing on the last weekend of September.

Los Alamitos is scheduled to hold a September meeting on behalf of the Los Angeles County Fair from Thursday, Sept. 10 through Friday, Sept. 25, but is seeking to add Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 26 and 27.

Santa Anita is scheduled to open its autumn meeting on Sept. 26. The track was granted that weekend of racing when the California Horse Racing Board issued a calendar for the 2014 and 2015 seasons in September 2013.

Handle at California tracks showed a slight gain for the year through February, according to figures compiled by the California Horse Racing Board.

Through the first two months, handle at all California racetracks was $502,681,107, an increase of 2 percent from last year. The data include daytime Thoroughbred racing at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita and evening meetings for Standardbreds at Cal-Expo and for Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds at Los Alamitos.

Daily Racing Form announced Wednesday the expansion of its digital product offerings with the addition of the popular Equibase and TrackMaster handicapping products to DRF.com’s digital storefront.

The new products include Equibase’s basic PP Program, Premium PP Program, and TrackMaster Platinum PP’s for the Thoroughbred player. Harness players will now be able to purchase the gold standard, TrackMaster PP’s and TrackMaster Platinum PP Programs, at DRF.com.

The New Jersey Racing Commission on Wednesday approved an amended racing schedule for Monmouth Park’s live meet in 2015 while also approving 13 Thoroughbred dates at the Meadowlands, according to commission officials.

Under the approvals, Monmouth will run 58 total live racing dates in 2015, from May 9 to Sept. 27, with racing on weekends in May and September and racing on a Friday through Sunday schedule in June, July, and August. The 13 live dates at the Meadowlands, which will only feature turf racing, will be held between Sept. 24 and Oct. 31.

An attorney for Parx racetrack outside of Philadelphia said on Tuesday that language in a document distributed to riders as a condition of being eligible for insurance coverage does not prohibit riders from suing the racetrack.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – A funeral will be held Thursday for former Woodbine racing executive John “Jack” Kenney, who died last Saturday at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto at age 79.

Kenney, a Vancouver-born lawyer, was the president and chief executive of the Ontario Jockey Club from 1975 into the 1980s. In 1990, Kenney, then a Woodbine director, was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame as a builder. He resigned from his position on the Woodbine board in 2010.

In recent years, Kenney owned horses as part of The Very Dry Stable and Double Eagle Stable.

NEW YORK – Banned trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. appeared in a federal court of appeals Monday, trying to convince a three-judge panel to hear his case against regulators who banned him from the sport for 10 years.

Dutrow’s attorney, Alan Sash, argued that Dutrow was denied due process and did not have a “full and fair opportunity” to defend himself in a federal court setting against the New York Gaming Commission (then the New York State Racing and Wagering Board), which banned him for a decade and fined him $50,000 for a history of rules violations.

Fatality rates at tracks participating in an industry-maintained database were virtually unchanged in 2014 compared with 2013, according to figures released Friday by The Jockey Club, and synthetic starts continued to show the lowest fatality rate by far among the three racing surfaces in use at North American tracks.

I read the column by Dick Jerardi published in the Daily Racing Form on Feb. 27 entitled “When in doubt, stewards should let the result stand.”
Although I strongly disagree with his opinion regarding the role of stewards, I can see, as he stated in his article, after 35 years, that his mind is made up. I am currently a steward in California and recognize that any future articles about stewards by Jerardi probably will have a negative slant.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A bill exempting wagers from any state taxes during the two-day Breeders’ Cup event at Keeneland in Lexington on Oct. 30-31 was passed late Wednesday in the Kentucky Senate and sent to Gov. Steve Beshear.

Following a House vote to approve the legislation last week, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 30-5, and Beshear is widely expected to sign it. The legislature had previously passed legislation exempting wagers from states taxes during the Breeders’ Cup events held at Churchill Downs, and other Breeders’ Cup host states have approved similar bills.