Tampa Bay Downs has reached an agreement to buy a dormant dog track approximately 15 miles away in order to keep the facility’s simulcast operation up and running, Tampa Bay Downs’s general manager said on Wednesday.

In the span of three years, 2011-13, the Midwest Thoroughbreds operation of Rich and Karen Papiese won 1,362 races: 418 in 2011, 542 in 2012, and 402 in 2013.

Those 542 wins in a season – think about that. An average of almost 1.5 wins every day of the year. For the architect of a massive racing operation, heaven.

But early in 2014, Rich Papiese said Midwest was changing. The win-a-day mentality was headed out the door. Quality would be prized over quantity. And in at least one particular instance, Papiese got that right, too.

Eleventh of 14 and eighth of 16. Those were Karakontie’s finishes in his two races before he traveled from France for the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita.

On the bare face of things, Karakontie might have looked as unlikely a BC Mile winner as any of the overseas horses in the race, and that is how bettors saw things, sending him off at odds of 30-1.

No filly or mare got closer to Untapable in 2014 than Sweet Reason, who was beaten just one length in the $1 million Cotillion Stakes. Such was the versatility of Sweet Reason that she also is an Eclipse Award finalist among female sprinters. On dirt, she was the only filly in the nation to win two Grade 1 stakes at distances up to a mile.

Sweet Reason burst onto the scene with two lengthy victories at Saratoga for Treadway Racing Stable, including a scintillating score in the Grade 1 Spinaway with a Beyer Speed Figure of 98 that was the fastest race by a juvenile filly in 2013.

Though his stable boasted the smallest roster of the three Eclipse Award finalists for outstanding owner, Kaleem Shah’s runners made their starts count, highlighted by a trip to the Santa Anita winner’s circle by star colt Bayern following his Breeders’ Cup Classic score.

Shah, a native of Bellary, India, and a resident of Vienna, Va., finished the year with 29 wins from 81 starts, placing him second among owners by North American earnings with $5,977,978. Shah also finished tied for second in graded stakes wins with nine.

Joel Rosario played a key role in the most important upset of 2014, guiding Tonalist to victory over Triple Crown hopeful California Chrome in the Belmont Stakes. Rosario’s season also included teaming with the top-class Close Hatches and notching a Breeders’ Cup win with Bobby’s Kitten. For his year, Rosario is a finalist for the Eclipse Award for outstanding jockey of 2014.

Fittingly for a filly with royal bloodlines, Crown Queen was perfect in four starts in 2014, earning a nomination for the Eclipse Award as champion turf female.

Such an achievement has been expected for most of her life. Crown Queen is a half-sister to Royal Delta, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2011 and the champion older female of 2012 and 2013. When Royal Delta was at the end of her 2011 season, Crown Queen was purchased for $1.6 million as a weanling at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale by Ben Leon’s Besilu Stables.

Less meant slightly more during Hawthorne Race Course’s 51-day fall-winter meeting that ended Saturday, as a reduction in racing days compared with the previous year was accompanied by an increase in all-sources average daily handle.

Chad Brown didn’t win the most money among North American trainers in 2014, or the most graded stakes races. But on racing’s championship days at the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, Brown won more of those prestigious races than any other trainer.

He won three Breeders’ Cup races, with Lady Eli taking the Juvenile Fillies Turf, Bobby’s Kitten the Turf Sprint, and Dayatthespa the Filly and Mare Turf over stablemate Stephanie’s Kitten.

Angel Cruz ranked among North America’s leading first-year riders in 2014, with 119 wins from 781 starts for mount earnings of $2,586,378. On the strength of such numbers, he is an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding apprentice jockey. The recognition is not lost on Cruz, a 19-year-old native of Puerto Rico.

“Oh, man, I accomplished a lot,” Cruz said when asked to reflect on his rookie year. “When I started, nobody believed in me but my grandmother and my stepfather. I kept working harder and harder every day, listened to riders, and got better and better.”