Blood-Horse Trainer Doug O'Neill earned his 2,000th victory of his career Nov. 22 at Del Mar, when Formally Wild crossed the wire first in a seven-furlong, $8,000 claiming event at the Southern California racetrack. Jockey Tyler Baze punctuated the 1 1/2-length win, ahead of second-place finisher and stablemate Ultimate Luck, with a fist pump just [...]

Blood-Horse With the Virginia Racing Commission recently denying Colonial Downs' efforts to host a limited Thoroughbred meet of 20 dates next year, the Virginia Equine Alliance updated its members Nov. 20 on its efforts to find a home for Thoroughbred racing in the state and other initiatives. Colonial Downs has not offered live racing in [...]

Blood-Horse The West Virginia Racing Commission Nov. 18 approved customary live racing dates, but the schedules for Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races and Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort are expected to be drastically reduced. The WVRC at its monthly meeting discussed racing dates for 2016 and approved the statutory minimums of 220 programs at [...]

Paulick Report The 2015 Big Sport of Turfdom Award – recognizing a person or group of people who enhance coverage of Thoroughbred racing through cooperation with media and racing publicists – has been awarded to the connections of American Pharoah, the Turf Publicists of America (TPA) announced today. “Team American Pharoah” – led by owner [...]

Blood-Horse Citing Colonial Downs' recent history of giving up its racing license, the Virginia Racing Commission on Nov. 17 denied an application from Colonial to conduct a limited race meet. VRC executive director Bernie Hettel said the commission denied the application based on Colonial giving up its racing license in 2014. In giving up that [...]

Blood-Horse The Indiana Horse Racing Commission, as part of its first industry summit meeting Nov. 20, is seeking feedback from racing stakeholders on ways to improve the economics and promotion of horse racing in the state. In a Nov. 16 memo IHRC chairman Tom Weatherwax said he is seeking "open dialogue" on issues in the [...]

Blood-Horse The Penn Gaming Racing Challenge, which links major races at tracks owned by Penn National Gaming Inc., will wrap up for this year at three racetracks Thanksgiving week. Eleven stakes valued at more than $1.6 million will be run Nov. 23 at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course in Ohio and Nov. 25 [...]

Blood-Horse The Wyoming Pari-Mutuel Commission Nov. 13 approved two companies as historical horse race wagering providers and authorized use of several game themes. Before the November meeting, EncoreRBG and Wyoming Horse Racing announced an agreement that calls for Encore to provide several hundred historical race wagering machines, a pari-mutuel wagering system, and pari-mutuel game themes [...]

Blood-Horse State officials in Pennsylvania said they expect lawmakers the week of Nov. 16 to consider legislation that would, in part, stabilize the funding of horse racing regulation. Department of Agriculture secretary Russell Redding Nov. 13 also said talks have progressed to the point that the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf has deferred making a [...]

Blood-Horse Live Thoroughbred racing can return to Brockton Fairgrounds for the first time since 2001 and Suffolk Downs will double the days of its live meet in 2016. Those were the decisions handed down by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission at a Nov. 12 hearing in Boston, when commissioners unanimously approved each of the 2016 dates' [...]