Sam Zonak, the executive director of the Ohio Racing Commission, will propose raising the minimum riding age in the state from 16 to 18 at the commission's rules committee meeting later this month. Zonak decided that the minimum riding age should be raised following the death of 16-year-old apprentice rider Josh Radosevich in a racing accident at Beulah Park on Nov. 16.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Citing concern about injuries and short fields, a group of 25 trainers appealed to the California Horse Racing Board on Thursday for improvements in Southern California racing surfaces and urged the state's racetracks to install Polytrack.

Board members supported a call for Polytrack, a sand-based synthetic material that has proven popular as an all-weather surface in England and has been well-received at Turfway Park in Kentucky since it was installed there this summer.

Youbet.com, the horse race wagering company, has reached an agreement to buy United Tote, one of the four bet-processing companies in the U.S., in a transaction valued at $49 million, Youbet announced on Thursday.

New York Gov. George Pataki has replaced the chairman of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, Michael Hoblock, with board member Cheryl Buley, officials for the board and the governor's office said Wednesday.

Hoblock, who has been chairman since 1998, will stay on the board, which has operated for the past three years with only two board members, the officials said. The board is the state's primary regulator of horse racing and charitable gaming.

The New York Racing Association intends to go ahead with an auction of 19 paintings at Sotheby's on Dec. 2 despite objections from the state's racing and wagering board and a state oversight board, the chief executive of NYRA, Charles Hayward, said on Wednesday.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Gary Birzer, the jockey who was paralyzed last year and whose unpaid medical bills became a catalyst for sweeping management changes at the Jockeys' Guild, has sued the guild and its former chief executive officer, L. Wayne Gertmenian, for $10 million.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Kentucky Horse Racing Authority unanimously approved a detailed plan to award an estimated $12 million in subsidies to Kentucky Thoroughbred breeders beginning in 2006 at a meeting on Monday in Lexington.

A state agency charged with overseeing the operations of the New York Racing Association has recommended that the association raise its takeout rates in order to address its cash-flow problems.

The recommendation to raise takeout was contained in a letter sent by the chairwoman of the oversight board, Carole Stone, dated Nov. 17, and sent to Charles Hayward, NYRA's chief executive officer. The letter was distributed by the board to reporters.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The possibility that the U.S. Congress will pass legislation that forces the racing industry to pay for a national jockeys' insurance program seemed remote at the close of a second hearing on Thursday into jockeys' health and welfare issues.

WASHINGTON - L. Wayne Gertmenian, the former chief executive of the Jockeys' Guild, wrote checks totaling $217,000 to himself and to other employees of his consulting company on Tuesday, the day Gertmenian was fired, the new head of the guild said on Thursday.