Total betting on Thoroughbred races held at U.S. tracks in August jumped 5.5 percent compared to the same month last year, aided by an extra weekend date, according to figures released by Equibase on Thursday.

Total betting was $1.167 billion in August, compared to $1.106 billion in August of last year, according to the figures. This year, August had nine weekend dates, compared to eight weekend dates in 2023.

Average wagering per race was up 4.6 percent, from $345,433 in August last year to $361,377 this year.

Charlotte Weber, the owner of Live Oak Stud and a prominent owner and breeder, has been named the interim chair of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame’s board of director, filling the spot previously held by John Hendrickson, who died on Aug. 19.

Weber has been a museum trustee since 2001, and she was the vice chair of the museum when Hendrickson died. Hendrickson, the husband of the late Marylou Whitney, had been the chair since 2017.

Weber was appointed to the interim position by a vote of the of the museum’s executive committee.

The Racing Medication and Testing Consortium has suspended the accreditation of a lab in Illinois that was responsible for testing samples pulled from horses in the state, according to the RMTC’s executive director.

Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., closed its doors as a racing, training, and wagering location on Saturday following a two-month transition period to consolidate racing and training at Laurel Park.

Pimlico will remain closed until the week of next year’s Preakness Stakes, when it will re-open for a brief meet managed by 1/ST Racing and Gaming, the track’s owner for the past two decades.

The Jockey Club has elected Marshall Gramm, a horseplayer, owner, and syndicate manager, as one of eight new members, the organization announced Thursday.

Gramm, the co-owner of Ten Strike Racing, is a professor in the Department of Economics at Rhodes College, where he teaches a class on betting markets. As a horseplayer, he won the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, the largest live-money handicapping tournament in the United States.

Other new members include:

Darby Development Inc., the company that has been running Monmouth Park in New Jersey under an arrangement with the track’s horsemen since 2012, has been granted an 85-year extension on a lease with the state, a decision that will allow several major real-estate developments at the track to go forward, according to Monmouth officials.

Parx Racing, a racetrack outside of Philadelphia, has suspended turf racing indefinitely until the course can be inspected and evaluated for suitability for racing, according to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.

In a statement issued in response to a request for comment, HISA said that Parx management told HISA officials that they had arranged for the Racing Services Testing Laboratory to “test and evaluate” the surface. In addition, members of HISA’s Track Surface Advisory Group are en route to conduct additional inspections, HISA said.

Arrangements were made. The news was shared with clients and colleagues. Plans were set to disperse the horses to different stables.

Then, Steve Specht, longtime trainer on the Northern California, reversed course. Retirement was not happening, at least not in the summer of 2024.

“I had called it quits,” Specht recalled earlier this month. “I told everybody I was done.

“I got down to it and I thought, I can’t do this.”

The lure of everyday life in the sport was too strong.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – While racing has made significant strides toward uniformity in safety and medication rules over the past two years with the advent of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the rules governing the management of betting pools and payouts remain frustratingly different from state-to-state, representatives of bet-processing companies said on a Wednesday panel on the final day of the Racing and Gaming Conference in Saratoga.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – New York and Maryland racing officials believe that the racing industries in their states have been put on firm footing due to projects to rebuild racetracks in the state, the officials said during a panel discussion on the second day of the Racing and Gaming Conference in Saratoga Springs.