The Kentucky House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill Friday that would legalize slot machines at the state's racetracks, but the leader of the Senate contended that the bill would not pass the Senate and countered with a plan of his own to subsidize purses.

The House voted 52-45 to approve the bill, which needed 51 votes to pass, after three hours of debate. The House is controlled by Democrats, who have rallied behind the slots legislation with the help of Gov. Steve Beshear, also a Democrat.

Four northern Illinois casinos have taken legal action that could prevent distribution of about $76omillion to the state's horse racing industry this summer.

Last Thursday, lawyers for the casinos filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Chicago accusing former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the campaign fund Friends of Blagojevich, and John Johnston, a major player in Chicago harness racing, of racketeering and corruption.

Kentucky's attorney general, Jack Conway, issued an opinion on Monday that a constitutional referendum is unnecessary to legalize slot machines at the state's racetracks.

The opinion was issued on the first day of a special session of the legislature called by Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat. A bill legalizing slot machines at Kentucky's racetracks that is supported by Beshear and the state's Democratic leadership is expected to be introduced to the House during the session. Conway is also a Democrat.

Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. in New York filed a lawsuit on Thursday that seeks to require the New York Racing Association to restore in-home broadcasts of its races to cable subscribers in Nassau County, the company said.

The lawsuit was filed in response to NYRA's blocking the distribution of the broadcasts to cable subscribers just days before the Belmont Stakes. NYRA withheld the signal after accusing the offtrack betting company of illegally streaming its races over an account-wagering site Nassau owns from mid-January to mid-April.

CHICAGO - The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of a 2008 Illinois Supreme Court ruling that upheld legislation directing four casinos in the northern part of the state to pay an impact fee to the horse racing industry. The decision not to hear the appeal will free up some $80 million to be distributed to the racing industry this summer.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has established a fund to aid its federal lobbying efforts. Called the Foal Fund, it replaces the check-off program breeders could use when registering foals with the Jockey Club; that program has been supplanted by the Jockey Club's new check-off initiative to support racehorse retirement and retraining programs.

A group of university researchers announced Thursday they are going to test how various racetrack surfaces affect the incidence and type of injuries in horses.

They intend to build laboratory models of synthetic and dirt surfaces, and then test the surfaces under a variety of conditions to gather data on how horses' hooves impact with the materials. The data will be fed into a computer model of a horses' forelimb to determine how likely certain conditions are to result in bone, joint, tendon, or ligament damage.

Parties wishing to bid on the assets that bankrupt Magna Entertainment Corp. plans to offer at auction later this year had until 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday to notify Magna of their interest, though the identities of any such party had not been made public Wednesday afternoon.

The deadline was the first step in Magna's planned auction of Santa Anita Park in Southern California, Lone Star Park in Texas, Remington Park in Oklahoma, Thistledown in Ohio, Portland Meadows in Oregon, and a handful of other properties.

The final hour of NBC-TV's Saturday broadcast of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore registered a Nielsen rating of 6.8, up 23.6 percent compared to the rating for the final hour of last year's Preakness, according to NBC.

Share for the final hour was a 16, up 23 percent compared to share of 13 last year. Share measures the percentage of televisions in use that are tuned to the broadcast.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association's Safety and Integrity Alliance stopped short of giving full accreditation to Pimlico Race Course, the site of Saturday's Preakness Stakes, after an on-site inspection and review of the track's documentation and procedures, according to a release from the organization issued late Thursday.