Bill Thomason, president and chief executive officer of Keeneland Association, was named to the board of directors of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association during a meeting of the organization’s board Friday, the NTRA said Monday.

Thomason, Keeneland’s former chief financial officer, succeeded Nick Nicholson at the helm of Keeneland as of Sept. 1. Nicholson was formerly a board member of the NTRA as well as the association’s first chief operating officer when it was formed in the late 1990s.

POMONA, Calif. – The California Horse Racing Board has approved a set of rules allowing for exchange betting in California, even though the new wager is far from ready to be implemented.

The racing board approved 22 rules pertaining to exchange betting at its monthly meeting on Thursday. The board is expected to discuss the rules again at its monthly meeting in October. The rules would then need a legal review from the state’s office of administrative law before becoming final.

Thoroughbred Times, the semimonthly magazine that had a more than 100-year history through its predecessor, the Thoroughbred Record, was shuttered on Saturday and all 27 of its employees were laid off, according to Mark Simon, the editor of the magazine.

The magazine’s parent company, BowTie Incorporated, informed the employees that they were being fired via letter delivered by Federal Express on Saturday morning, Simon said. The Times’s Lexington office was locked and closed to the employees as of that morning, and the company has entered Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Should Kentucky racetracks be using Instant Racing electronic gambling machines to fight off casino competition in neighboring states?

So far, the numbers say no. But just before Labor Day weekend, Ellis Park in western Kentucky became the second track in the state to install the devices after building a $3 million, casino-style parlor in its grandstand to house them. The other track, Kentucky Downs, on the Tennessee border, opened its own $3 million Instant Racing parlor last year.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A committee of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Wednesday unanimously voted to recommend that the commission approve the sale of 30 percent of Ellis Park in Henderson to an ownership group associated with Saratoga Harness and Casino in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The deal includes provisions that could enable the New York group to one day purchase all of the equity in Ellis. The 30 percent stake cost the group $4 million in cash, according to officials for both sides.

Wagering on U.S. races during the month of August increased 11.6 percent compared to wagering during August of last year, according to figures released Wednesday by Equibase, but the jump was tempered by a nearly equivalent rise in race days.

While betting on U.S. races during the month rose from $982 million to $1.096 billion, the number of race days increased from 527 in August of last year to 576 in August 2012, a rise of 9.3 percent. On average, handle per race day in August of this year was $1.90 million, compared to $1.86 million last year, a difference of 2.1 percent.

Frank Stronach, the billionaire Thoroughbred owner and breeder who owns some of the most prominent racetracks in the United States, has announced that he will form a political party in his native Austria seeking the country’s withdrawal from the euro zone.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will award grants totaling $290,000 to Thoroughbred aftercare programs through the ASPCA’s Million Dollar Rescuing Racers Initiative.

The grants are to help recipients rescue and rehabilitate former racehorses in an effort to save those horses from the slaughter pipeline. Grants range from $5,000 to $35,000.

LEXINGTON – Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has overridden a recent decision by a state legislative committee to strike down several new medication rules, his office said late on Thursday.

A decision by a Kentucky legislative committee to strike down new medication rules in the state has been targeted for additional criticism by two national racing organizations, including the industry-wide coalition that endorsed the rules.