A bill that would create a state-administered fund to cover jockeys in Kentucky under a workers' compensation program was changed last week to derive its funding from an increase in the takeout rather than from tracks, horse owners, and jockeys.
The bill is not expected to pass the state legislature, which is scheduled to adjourn on Friday. But the funding change has raised questions about any future efforts to pass legislation establishing workers' compensation for jockeys.
The Kentucky Horse Racing Authority on Monday approved proposals by Churchill Downs and Keeneland Racecourse to disregard, for the purposes of pick three and pick four wagers, the results of any race that is moved off the turf.
Under the new Kentucky rule, any pick three or pick four ticket that includes a race with a late surface change will be treated as if the bettor selected the winner, regardless of the outcome.
Tim Smith, the former executive director of the nonprofit group Friends of New York Racing, has confirmed that he acted as an adviser to Empire Racing Associates, the for-profit company whose formation was announced a week ago with the goal of lobbying for changes in racing law and ultimately bidding on the franchise held by the New York Racing Association.
The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., denied an injunction this week sought by animal-rights groups to stop the federal government from allowing horse slaughterhouses to pay for inspections of horse meat.
The decision is a setback for the anti-slaughter movement, which last year supported a measure passed by federal legislators that suspended all funding to the Department of Agriculture for horse meat inspectors. Earlier this year, the agriculture department announced a program allowing slaughterhouses to pay for the inspections.
A committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a measure that would call for a referendum on casino gambling in Kentucky using stripped-down language that does not identify which sites would be eligible to open casinos.
Frank Stronach, the founder of Magna Entertainment Corp., the country's largest racetrack operator, will head the company on an interim basis while it searches for a new chief executive, Magna announced on Wednesday.
Thomas Hodgson, Magna's current chief executive, will step down at the end of March, Magna officials said. Stronach also headed Magna on an interim basis in 2000 and 2001.
Officials of the Jockeys' Guild met with representatives of racetracks and horsemen's organizations on Tuesday at Gulfstream Park in Florida in the latest round of talks between the two sides on how to improve conditions for riders, participants in the talks said.
Churchill Downs Inc., the owner of six racetracks in the United States, had net income of $78.9 million in 2005, or $5.92 a share, largely on the profits from selling its Hollywood Park in Southern California last summer, according to financial documents released late Tuesday.
The Kentucky General Assembly's Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee approved new penalties for medication violations on Monday, according to Mark York, a spokesman for the agency that promulgated the new rules, the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority.
The rules will now be sent to the General Assembly's Licensing and Occupations Committee for further review, York said.
The New York Racing Association is rapidly running out of friends.
NYRA officially lost the support of its own horsemen earlier this week when the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association gave an exclusive pledge to a new company that intends to bid on NYRA's franchise to operate Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga, which expires Dec. 31, 2007. The pledge has alienated NYRA officials who were not only blindsided by the announcement but were also left at the altar by a group that NYRA assumed would be in its corner when the heavy lobbying begins.
