As they prepare for the imminent select 2-year-old sale season, executives at the nation's major auction houses agree about one thing: The 2008 select juvenile season probably will look similar to last year's, at least in terms of financial returns.

The shutdown of racing at Aqueduct on Feb. 14 still loomed as a possibility on Thursday despite the insistence of Joseph Bruno, the state senate majority leader, that a long-term franchise extension for the New York Racing Association was close at hand, officials involved in negotiations said.

When Bay Meadows presumably closes its doors for the last time this year, the face of racing in Northern California will change dramatically in 2009.

Golden Gate Fields, Northern California's only other privately owned track, is on record as saying it would be able to accommodate only 50 of Bay Meadows's approximate 100 race dates, leaving 50 possible dates for fair tracks, which are owned by the state or counties.

A Hold That Tiger colt breezed a quarter-mile in 20.80 seconds Sunday as the fastest worker over that distance at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's select 2-year-old sale preview.

Sunday's preview was the first of two breeze shows for the Feb. 12 auction in Ocala, Fla., and the first to be conducted over OBS's newly installed Safetrack synthetic surface. The second under-tack preview was to take place on Feb. 10 at 9 a.m.

Millennium Farms has added its Grade 1-winning stallion Millennium Wind to its new "frequent breeder" rewards program.

Millennium Wind stands at Highcliff Farm in Delanson, N.Y., for a $5,000 fee this year.

Under the program, breeders can accumulate points by breeding to Millennium stallions and for successes those stallions' progeny have in the sale ring and at the races. Breeders can redeem points, converted to dollars at a rate of 10 percent, and apply that toward the fee of a Millennium stallion.

Officials for the Thoroughbred Owners of California and New York's offtrack betting corporations have not yet discussed a resolution to a dispute over the rate the OTB companies pay for signals from California tracks, according to an official at one of the offtrack companies on Monday.

Charles Wait, the president of the upstate New York bank Adirondack Trust, resigned from the board of the New York Racing Association on Wednesday, one day prior to openly criticizing senator Joseph Bruno for his role in negotiations over a long-term franchise for the association.

Racing jurisdictions in the United States should hold off on implementing rules regulating the administration of anabolic steroids until Jan. 1, 2009, officials for the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium said on Thursday.

Voters in Miami-Dade County, Fla., on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a referendum that will allow the county's three parimutuel facilities, including Calder Race Course, to open slot-machine parlors.

The referendum passed by a vote of 63 percent to 37 percent. In late 2005, Miami-Dade voters defeated the same measure by a vote of 52 percent to 48 percent, even as voters in Broward County approved an identical measure.

Scott Borgemenke, a former chairman of the Ohio State Racing Commission, has been hired by Magna Entertainment Corp. as its executive vice president for racing, the company announced Monday.

Borgemenke, who has also had staff positions in the Ohio legislature and was most recently the chief of staff to the speaker of the state house of representatives, will be responsible for the racing operations at all of Magna’s tracks. Magna Entertainment, founded in 1999, owns or operates a dozen racetracks in the United States, including Thistledown in Ohio.