OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jason Blewitt, who has worked for the New York Racing Association since 1998, was fired Thursday as the company eliminated his position as television host and analyst.

Blewitt, 38, began working at NYRA part time in the media communications department in September 1998. He started working full time in that department in May 2000. Blewitt eventually left the communications department for the television department, where he was a presence on both NYRA’s in-house simulcast show and, for a decade, the host of NYRA’s nightly recap program.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Mo Town, who won the Grade 2 Remsen at Aqueduct in November, returned to the work tab Friday at Payson Park as he begins preparations for his 3-year-old campaign.

According to trainer Tony Dutrow, Mo Town worked a half-mile in 50.60 seconds over the dirt surface at Payson Park, a training center in Indiantown, Fla.

“All is very good,” Dutrow said. “The horse is happy. I wanted to get started today. He did it matter-of-factly.”

Besides trainer Alice Cohn, whose horse had to be euthanized after it contracted the equine herpesvirus and got very sick on Christmas Day, no trainer at Fair Grounds has been harder hit by the ongoing herpes outbreak than Michelle Lovell.

Lovell is the main occupant of barn 14, which housed the deceased Cohn-trained horse, the first horse to test positive for EHV-1 at Fair Grounds. A second horse in the barn, trained by Jeff Thornbury, also got sick from EHV-1 and now is isolated on another part of the Fair Grounds backstretch.

Pegasus World Cup contender Eragon visited the Gulfstream Park track for the first time Friday, jogging two miles before reversing direction and galloping a little more than a mile after the first renovation break.

Eragon’s arrival at Gulfstream was delayed one week after the Argentinian-bred was detained in quarantine in Miami until Thursday morning, forcing trainer Laura Wohlers to cancel her original plan of running the multiple Group 1 winner in the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope here next Saturday.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Arrogate, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Nov. 5, is in need of a workout this weekend to stay on schedule for the $12 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 28.

“If I can squeeze a breeze on Saturday or Sunday, I’ll be fine,” trainer Bob Baffert said Friday.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The California-bred stakes winner Chao Chom, who was pulled up in the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes on Dec. 26, will be out six months after X-rays revealed a cannon-bone fracture.

Trainer Gary Stute said Friday that the condylar fracture was a “hairline” break, and he expects the 4-year-old filly to return later in 2017. Chao Chom won the $100,000 Betty Grable Stakes on Nov. 13 at Del Mar before she was pulled in the La Brea.

Sired by Tizbud, Chao Chom has won two races and $146,945 from eight starts.

ARCADIA, Calif. – American Gal, among the top 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita and one of the Kaleem Shah-owned runners previously trained by Bob Baffert, will be out 60 days after undergoing minor surgery to remove a chip from an ankle.

Her new trainer, Doug O’Neill, said Friday that American Gal had filling in an ankle, and X-rays revealed the chip. “She’s here [at Santa Anita], she’ll go to the farm in a few days, and in 60 days she’ll be back, ready to roll.”

Fair Grounds received approval from the track stewards to begin accepting entries Wednesday from horses stabled in barn 14, which remains under quarantine because of two equine herpesvirus cases there.

No new cases in that barn, however, have been reported since Dec. 31, and barring another case, the barn’s quarantine will expire Jan. 13, the day for which entries Wednesday were being taken.

The Brad Cox barn’s strong run through the Fair Grounds race meeting shows no sign of slowing on Saturday, when Cox sends out the very promising 3-year-old filly Dontmesswithjoanne.

Dontmesswithjoanne is one of 12 fillies (Legallini is entered for the main track only) in the sixth race, a one-mile turf race open to first-level allowance horses or $50,000 claimers. Entries for the race were taken last Wednesday, at which point only one barn on the backstretch had been quarantined because of the equine herpesvirus outbreak at Fair Grounds.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After looking into the possibility of leasing a horse for the $12 million Pegasus World Cup, Starlight Pegasus Partners announced Wednesday that it intends to run its own Neolithic in the Pegasus here on Jan. 28.