Eight racing states along the Eastern Seaboard, including New York and Pennsylvania, have agreed to adopt a set of policies designed to tighten the administration of medication to racehorses and align the states under one set of rules, the organization that pushed for the agreement announced Tuesday.

Daily Racing Form has named Mark Simon to the new position of Editorial Director.

Simon joined the company in October 2012 from the Thoroughbred Times to lead DRF Breeding, the company’s expanded coverage of the breeding and sales segment of Thoroughbred racing. As Editorial Director, Simon will continue to oversee DRF Breeding but also will lead the national editorial and content operation that publishes racing news, analysis, handicapping tools, and past performances.

The fatality rate for Thoroughbred horses running on synthetic surfaces continues to be far lower than the rate on dirt and turf surfaces, according to a Friday release by the Jockey Club of updated figures gleaned from the Equine Injury Database.

In 2012, the fatality rate per 1,000 starts on synthetic surfaces was 1.03, half the 2.10 rate for dirt surfaces, according to the data. On turf, the fatality rate was 1.74 per 1,000 starts.

The new, state-controlled board of the New York Racing Association has talked the talk during its first two open board meetings about cracking down on trainers who violate medication rules. But it’s going to have a tough time walking the walk.

Racing regulators will seek to apply a stricter standard to rules restricting when therapeutic medications can be administered to horses as part of a national effort to pass uniform rules in all 38 U.S. racing states, the regulators said late on Monday.

The number of race days at U.S. tracks in February plummeted 10.8 percent compared to the same number last February, with handle and purses falling in lockstep but at lesser rates, according to figures released Monday by Equibase.

Race days in the month fell from 332 last February to 296 this February, according to the figures. The reduction included the four race days that Aqueduct canceled during the month as part of a management-led initiative to pare the racing schedule, along with a handful of weather-related cancellations at other tracks.

Oliver Tait, the chief operating officer of the international breeding and racing operation Darley, has resigned from the board of the Breeders’ Cup, citing the organization’s decision last week to suspend the expansion of a policy banning the raceday use of furosemide in Breeders’ Cup races.

Chris Grove, a trainer based in the Mid-Atlantic, has been suspended six months by the stewards at Charles Town Races after one of his horses tested positive for a Class 1 stimulant after winning a race there in July last year.

Bubba de France, a horse trained by Grove, tested positive for nikethamide after winning a $5,000 claiming race on July 28, 2012, stewards at Charles Town said on Friday. Nikethamide is a respiratory stimulant that has been abused by human athletes for its purported ability to increase endurance. The drug is banned in racing at any level of detection.

A federal judge late on Thursday upheld a challenge to a law authorizing sports betting in New Jersey, siding with a handful of professional sports leagues that said the law violated a federal ban on the practice.

The ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shipp, is a setback to the state’s racetracks, which would have been allowed to offer sports betting along with the state’s casinos if the law was upheld. New Jersey is expected to appeal the decision, with the support of Gov. Chris Christie.

Gulfstream Park and Calder Race Course stuck to their guns on Thursday, the deadline to file dates requests with Florida regulators, setting up the possibility that the two Miami-area tracks will race head-to-head beginning this summer.