LEXINGTON, Ky. - Keeneland's April 2-year-old sale closed out the boutique juvenile auction season on a bright spot, reversing the 2009 sale's declines in gross and median.
The sale-topper was a $625,000 Bernardini colt that Jess Jackson's Stonestreet Stable purchased from William Helmbrecht, agent.
Helmbrecht's brother Mike bred the colt in the name of the Woodbridge Farm, which he operates with partner Bill Geist.
New York legislators will be greeted with more than a dozen bills designed to address the financial plight of the bankrupt New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation when they return to session on Wednesday, four days before a threatened shutdown of the state-owned company.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Ahmed Zayat, the owner of Kentucky Derby contender Eskendereya, has been cleared to race in Kentucky after an inquiry into his associations with convicted bookmakers, according to Kentucky Horse Racing Commission officials.
Lisa Underwood, the executive director of the commission, said on Friday that a four-week investigation into the matter did not uncover any compelling justification to deny Zayat the privilege of running his horses in the state.
MI Developments, the parent company of the bankrupt racetrack operator Magna Entertainment Corp., had net income of $11.7 million in 2009, a sharp decline from 2008 net income of $132.2 million, according to financial documents released by the company on Monday night.
Leo Waldman, who in the 1950s founded the advertising departments of the Daily Racing Form and its old sister publication, The Morning Telegraph, died at his home in Hewlett, N.Y., on Monday morning. He was 99.
Waldman worked for the Form for more than 50 years and wrote the Form's weekly New York breeding column for more than a decade.
Facing serious financial challenges in the wake of a scuttled casino project at Aqueduct and a bankrupt New York City Off-Track Betting Corp., the New York Racing Association on Friday announced that it had let go 12 employees whose salaries combine to be $1.4 million annually.
Magna Entertainment Corp. no longer plans to auction its Maryland properties and will instead transfer Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course to its parent company, according to participants in the auction.
The Maryland tracks were scheduled to go to auction on Thursday, but Magna informed auction participants Tuesday that it would transfer the assets to its parent, MI Developments Corp. Magna submitted the reorganization plan Tuesday to a bankruptcy court, which must approve the new arragnement.