SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – One year ago at the Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing, Jockey Club chairman Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps vowed that his organization would throw its considerable weight behind legislation giving the federal government the power to regulate the sport if the vast majority of racing states had not fully adopted a set of uniform rules supported by The Jockey Club by the following August.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Legislation that does not have the full support of an entire industry, such as the controversial bill that would give the federal government oversight of racing, is extremely unlikely to pass before the current congressional session ends, federal lobbyists said Thursday night during a briefing near Saratoga Race Course.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Gretchen Jackson, a partner with her husband in Lael Stables, has been named the president of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., by the museum’s executive committee, the museum announced Thursday, one day before its 2014 induction ceremony.

Jackson, who raced 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, will succeed Stella Thayer, who has been president of the museum and hall since 2005. Thayer will continue to serve on the board of trustees, the museum said.

Although a law allowing for account wagering went into effect two weeks ago in Arizona, the practice won’t likely be available to residents of the state until early 2015, according to officials at the Arizona Department of Racing.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Almost four years after New York City Off-Track Betting closed, the New York Racing Association is hoping to re-enter the market by placing self-betting machines at select bars and restaurants throughout Manhattan.

The U.S. Treasury Department has told Congress that it will review a proposed reinterpretation of a tax rule that would be favorable to horseplayers, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which conducts federal lobbying efforts on behalf of the racing industry, said Wednesday.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Frank Stronach, the billionaire owner-breeder and racetrack owner, has sent a letter to racetracks calling for collective action to ban the race-day use of furosemide, the diuretic known as Lasix that is widely used in North America to treat bleeding in the lungs.

The letter said that racetrack operators “are the only ones who can make a change happen, but only if we work together. I am asking that as stakeholders with shared interests, we work on a plan to phase in a ban on all [race-day] medication at our tracks.”

His name is synonymous with the muscular little stallion who molded the modern racehorse into his own image and rewrote the record books for 20th century Thoroughbred auctions. … He completely reorganized Canadian racing and built Woodbine into a model racetrack admired the world over. … And through the years, his breeding empire turned out more worldwide stakes winners than any other 20th century operation. Prior to his 1989 death, Edward Plunket Taylor left his imprint on the sport of kings in no uncertain terms – permanently, indelibly, and globally.

In becoming the 98th jockey to be inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame, Alex Solis joins a whole bunch of riders who wonder what took him so long to get there.

His contemporaries were entering the Hall with regularity. Chris McCarron, Kent Desormeaux, Jose Santos, Edgar Prado, Mike Smith, Julie Krone, Russell Baze, Eddie Delahoussaye, Randy Romero, Jerry Bailey, Gary Stevens – they all rode boot to boot against Solis in their primes and knew how tough he was to deny.

In recent years, Gary Jones largely had abandoned the dream of being inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame. Each spring seemed to bring the disappointment that he had not been selected or did not appear on the ballot. Then his phone rang in April with the good news.

“I was totally flabbergasted,” Jones said last week. “I was in complete disbelief.”

The frustration of being overlooked in the past was replaced by the elation of being voted into the Hall of Fame, nearly 20 years after Jones retired from training.