Oaklawn Park

5th-KEE, $100K, Msw, 2yo, 7f, 3:08 p.m. ET Gold Square's AIR OF DEFIANCE (Quality Road), a $400,000 Keeneland September purchase, is the 3-1 morning-line favorite after running a solid second behind 'TDN Rising Star' Fierceness (City of Light) over a muddy strip at Saratoga in his six-furlong debut Aug. 25. The Brad Cox trainee is the second foal out of graded stakes winner Faypien (Ghostzapper). St. Elias and Starlight Racing's It'smyluckytime (Not This Time), a $450,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling, makes his first trip to the post for trainer Todd Pletcher....

Jockey Tyler Baze, the Eclipse-winning outstanding apprentice jockey of 2000 who now sports 2,889 wins, returned from a major health scare with his first visit to the winner's circle since Apr. 14 at Oaklawn Park. "I needed it," Baze told the Santa Anita notes team Friday morning at Clocker's Corner. "It took a lot for me to get to this point after being in the hospital and almost dying." Baze was hospitalized for about two weeks in Arkansas after that last win at Oaklawn with severe pain as doctors sought...

Oaklawn Jockey Club in Hot Springs named Matt Dinerman as the new track announcer for the upcoming Thoroughbred racing season, which begins December 8, the organization said in a release early Friday morning. Dinerman, 31, comes to Hot Springs following a six-year stint as the track announcer at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley, California. He has also served as track announcer at the Sonoma County Fair meet in Santa Rosa, California, for the past two years. "I'm honored to be selected for such a prestigious role, following in the footsteps...

The largest purse increase in Oaklawn Park history was unveiled in a release Wednesday by the track. Purse distribution for the upcoming 2023-2024 season is set for $60 million, which amounts to a $10 million or 20% increase over last season's record-setting $50 million distribution. The average daily purses will top $900,000 when the season starts on Dec. 8. Purses for allowance races will be $140,000--$145,000, maiden special weights will be $115,000 and the minimum purse on any race will be $30,000. "Let me put this in perspective," said Oaklawn...

Oaklawn Park is pumping nearly $1 million more into the purses for its 3-year-old races, the track said in a release Wednesday. Oaklawn increased the purses of the four races pointing toward the GI Kentucky Derby a total of $600,000, with the GI Arkansas Derby bumped to $1,500,000 from $1,250,000; the GII Rebel S. going to $1,250,000 from $1,000,000; and the GIII Southwest S. and Smarty Jones increasing to $800,000 and $300,000, respectively. The purses for the three races for 3-year-old fillies with GI Kentucky Oaks aspirations were also increased,...

You could be forgiven if the fifth race at Louisiana Downs Monday evening was well off your radar screen, but Don'tcrossthedevil (Cross Traffic)'s 4 1/4-length victory in the one mile and 70 yard allowance completed a long and winding road to redemption for co-owner Kevin Knuckley and trainer and breeder Jaylan Clary. Clary bred the 4-year-old gelding with her late father, trainer Michael Neatherlin, and the bay made his winning debut at Remington Park just weeks after Neatherlin died in the fall of 2021. A second open-lengths victory briefly had...

Veteran trainer David Vance, one of the fixtures on the Kentucky and Arkansas racing circuits, has announced his retirement following a 58-year career. "It's been a great run but I've decided it's time to retire," Vance said. "Horse racing is in my blood and it's all I've known my entire life. I've told myself I'd train as long as I physically could and now is the time to retire. I'm proud our family will remain involved in training horses with my son, Tommy, and daughter, Trisha, who are third-generation trainers."...

Robertino Diodoro, currently fifth for wins in this year's North American trainer standings, has been suspended 30 days and fined $1,000 after a colt under his care, Aristocracy (Tapit), tested positive for elevated total carbon dioxide (TCO2) in the blood after finishing sixth in the Apr. 22 $200,000 Bath House Row S. at Oaklawn Park. According to two rulings issued by the Arkansas Racing Commission on Monday, May 15, Aristocracy is disqualified from purse winnings, and Diodoro will have 15 days of his suspension stayed "on the condition that no...

Like countless owners, Marshall Gramm has a race circled on the first Saturday in May. But it's not the "Greatest Two Minutes in Sports," aka the Kentucky Derby. Gramm's affection is for a race that lasts approximately three minutes, a 1 3/4-mile event at Oaklawn Park with a history, albeit, esoteric, of its own. The "Trail's End," a starter-allowance marathon, is traditionally the final race each season at Oaklawn, the Hot Springs, AR, venue that opened in 1905. The 1 3/4-mile race debuted in 1972 and has been won the...

Every week, the TDN publishes a roundup of key official rulings from the primary tracks within the four major racing jurisdictions of California, New York, Florida and Kentucky. Here's a primer on how each of these jurisdictions adjudicates different offenses, what they make public (or not) and where. With the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) having gone into effect on July 1, 2022, the TDN will also post a roundup of the relevant HISA-related rulings from the same week. California Track: Santa Anita Date: 05/05/2023 Licensee: Jens Frederick Larsen,...

Every week, the TDN publishes a roundup of key official rulings from the primary tracks within the four major racing jurisdictions of California, New York, Florida and Kentucky. Here's a primer on how each of these jurisdictions adjudicates different offenses, what they make public (or not) and where. With the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) having gone into effect on July 1, 2022, the TDN will also post a roundup of the relevant HISA-related rulings from the same week. California Track: Santa Anita Date: 04/28/2023 Licensee: Lisa Bernard, owner-trainer...

You probably didn't know Betty Henderson, which is your loss. I did. She was my aunt and she passed away Wednesday at her home in Hot Springs, Arkansas at the age of 98. I'm writing this not because I lost a beloved aunt and my father's sister, but because, unbeknownst to the sport, the game has lost the type of fan we want all fans to be. If you're reading this, you probably like horse racing. Then there are those like Betty. They don't just like it. It gets so...