The Delaware Racing Commission on Wednesday approved an 85-day season at Delaware Park in 2019.

The season will be four days longer than in recent years. In 2013, the track trimmed its race dates from 94 to 81.

Under a new three-year agreement between Delaware management and the Delaware Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, the track will also race 85 days in 2020 and 2021.

Kevin DeLucia, the senior vice president of racing/finance at Delaware, said the agreement will help strengthen the racing program.

Late Night Pow Wow came out of her emphatic victory in last Saturday’s What a Summer Stakes at Laurel Park in good shape, according to trainer Javier Contreras, and is on target to start in the Grade 3, $250,000 Barbara Fritchie on Feb. 16.

Contreras said he also planned to nominate Devine Mischief to the Fritchie following her second-place finish in the What a Summer. Devine Mischief was making her first start for Contreras after being transferred to him by Mike Hall and Sam Ross, who race as Breeze Easy LLC and own Late Night Pow Wow.

NEW ORLEANS – Intended Pegasus World Cup runner Tom’s d’Etat will have his final work before the race Sunday at Fair Grounds.

It’s a big day for the horse’s connections: Gayle Benson’s GMB Racing owns Tom’s d’Etat, and the Benson family also owns the New Orleans Saints, who have a National Football League playoff game Sunday afternoon.

NEW ORLEANS – The $1 million Queen’s Plate is more than five months away, on June 28 at Woodbine, but for 3-year-old filly Desert Ride’s connections it might not be too early to start thinking about that race.

Ontario-bred Desert Ride had her first trip to the post in the eighth race Thursday at Fair Grounds and, despite making some mistakes (starting with a poor break), she came away with a 1 1/4-length win. Desert Ride rallied from last under Shaun Bridgmohan and really exploded the final 1 1/2 furlongs to take a going-away victory.

NEW ORLEANS – Cornacchia got more attention in the betting but his Brad Cox-trained stablemate Owendale got the money in featured race 5 Thursday at Fair Grounds. Owendale won the mile and 70-yard allowance race for 3-year-olds by 1 1/2 lengths, probably earning a start in the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 16, Cox said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Aqueduct will not conduct live racing Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, due to a forecast that calls for frigid conditions, the New York Racing Association announced Thursday.

The forecast on weather.com for Monday calls for a high of 20 degrees, with wind chills in the single digits to near zero.

NYRA also announced that there will be no training at Aqueduct or Belmont Park on Monday.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita is guaranteeing a $2 million payout in the 20-cent Rainbow pick six for eight racing days beginning on Saturday and plans to have a mandatory payout day for the pool on Feb. 2.

The Rainbow portion of the pick six is paid only if there is a single winning ticket, which has not occurred since the meeting began on Dec. 26. The carryover in the Rainbow pick six for Friday’s eight-race program is $883,200. Last Sunday, the most recent day of racing, the pick six paid $18,029 to 11 ticketholders.

Owner Peter Redekop has kicked in $100,000 to the purse of the British Columbia Derby at Hastings Racecourse, boosting the value of the race to $250,000, according to a release from Hastings.

The Grade 3 B.C. Derby, the richest race at the Vancouver racetrack, will be run for the 74^th time on Sept. 7.

Redekop, a member of the B.C. Horse Racing Hall of Fame, won the B.C. Derby three consecutive years – in 2012 with Second City, 2013 with Title Contender, and 2014 with Alert Bay.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Accelerate, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November and the expected favorite in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26, has had a week of limited training because of wet conditions at Santa Anita.

Trainer John Sadler said on Thursday that Accelerate has had “easy gallops on the training track” in recent days. The Santa Anita main track has been closed for training because of rain.

Sadler said Accelerate remains on schedule for the Pegasus World Cup, but the date of a final workout has not been determined.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Persistent rain through the week and the forecast for a very wet day led Santa Anita officials to cancel Thursday’s eight-race program. The decision was made early Thursday morning after a conference call among track officials.

“We’ve had almost three inches and there is a prediction of two to three more inches today,” director of racing Dan Eidson said early Thursday morning.

“That’s too much.”