New Mexico

For the second time in a little over a year, the New Mexico-based jockey Oscar Ceballos has successfully appealed to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to wipe out penalties related to a more-than-six-strikes whipping disqualification handed down by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA). The Oct. 3, 2024, ruling involved circumstances remarkably similar to Ceballos's first penalty reversal by the FTC on Sept. 11, 2023. Both successful appeals involved a total of 11 strikes administered to a Thoroughbred in a stakes at a New Mexico track, and both appeals...

A mandatory evacuation in the area surrounding New Mexico's Ruidoso Downs was issued Tuesday after the South Fork Fire was reported by government officials at nearly 14,000 acres with zero percent containment. Officials were alerted Monday morning to the fire, which is burning on Mescalero Tribal land, U.S. Forest Service land, and in the areas surrounding Ruidoso. Ruidoso Downs is located within the Village of Ruidoso. "The racetrack right now is in great shape," said New Mexico-based trainer Todd Fincher, who has 70 head on the premises. "Huge fire destroying...

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES -- To coin a phrase uttered by the actor John Houseman from the Smith Barney television commercials of the mid-1980s, Senor Buscador (Mineshaft) has really 'earrrrrned it' as he approaches his second straight appearance in an eight-figure horse race, Saturday's $12-million G1 Dubai World Cup at Meydan Racecourse. "Yeah. I mean, it's been pretty crazy," admits owner and breeder Joey Peacock, Jr. Peacock, a resident of San Antonio, and his family have been in the horse business for the better part of 5 1/2 decades, but...

Todd Fincher, a standout on the New Mexico circuit, picked the perfect time and place to pick up his first Grade I win. His stable star Senor Buscador (Mineshaft), who was overdue to collect a big win, got the job done in the GI Saudi Cup. With a purse of $20 million, it is the richest Thoroughbred race in the world. Fincher joined this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss his popular horse, the reasons why he likes training in New Mexico, what are the prospects...

The 19th season of horse racing at Zia Park was a record setting one on several fronts with new standards set for average daily handle, purses and safety during the 30-day mixed Quarter Horse/Thoroughbred meet, the PENN Entertainment-owned track said in a release Thursday afternoon. An average daily handle of $830,371 was up 72% from the 48-date meet in 2022 to set a new track record and was the highest daily handle recorded by a racetrack in the state of New Mexico since 2010. Live handle was up an equally...

Purses for the upcoming race meet at Zia Park will be the richest in the track's 24 years, with overnight purses expected to average $360,000 per day for the 30-day mixed Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse meet. "With the realignment of the 2023 New Mexico racing calendar, this is a tremendous opportunity to showcase New Mexico horse racing," said Christopher McErlean, Vice President of Racing for PENN Entertainment, parent company of Zia Park.  "There will be racing opportunities for all categories--New Mexico-breds and open horses, wide ranges of allowance classes and...

by J.N. Campbell If you didn't know the name of New Mexico's Todd Fincher, you do now. The past few weeks solidified it. "My phone's just blown up," he admitted. In the GII Thoroughbred Club of America S. at Keeneland on Oct. 8, the trainer's 4-year-old filly Slammed (Marking) set the pace early. Never looking back, she torched a solid field by more than a half dozen lengths. Once supplemented for $200,000, she will race on the same track in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint on Nov....

District Court Judge Victor S. Lopez determined in his Sept. 20 order that the New Mexico Racing Commission (NMRC) improperly required horsemen, through their purse accounts, to pay half of racetracks' insurance premiums for jockeys and exercise riders, in violation of state statute. Since 2009, more than $9 million has been taken from purse accounts at New Mexico's five racetracks to use for the insurance premiums. In late 2020, the NMHA went to court to end the practice and to get all or a portion of the purse money returned....

MGSW American Anthem (Bodemeister--Indy's Windy by A.P. Indy) has been purchased by Reliance Ranches, in a sale brokered by Pat Morelli, and will stand stud at Sierra Blanco Equine in New Mexico. Bred by WinStar Farm, he was purchased by Aron Yagoda's E.J. Stable for $180,000 at KEESEP and resold to his breeder in partnership with China Horse Club for $435,000 at OBS March. He won three graded events, including the GII Woody Stephens S., and placed in multiple Grade Is for those connections and trainer Bob Baffert, before selling...

GSW Runaway Ghost (Ghostzapper--Rose's Desert, by Desert God) has been retired from racing and will stand for the 2021 breeding season at Double LL Farms in Bosque, New Mexico. With lifetime earnings of $783,509, he won a total of six stakes races, from six furlongs to a mile and an eighth, by a combined 27 1/4 lengths. His GIII Sunland Derby win earned him the right to "Run for the Roses" in the 2018 GI Kentucky Derby, but he was forced to scratch prior to the Derby after suffering a...

Sunland Park in New Mexico has become the latest racetrack to shutter indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic--the GIII Sunland Derby, which offered qualifying points for the GI Kentucky Derby and was scheduled for next Sunday, will not be run. The announcement came within minutes of the release of an overnight for the would-be Sunland Derby card. "Yesterday afternoon we received a call at about 12:30 from [Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham]'s office," Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino GM Rick Baugh said in a video posted on twitter Sunday by Felix...