The Jockey Club

Scott Little has been appointed vice president of racing services at Equibase. Little, who has served as the company's director of track services since 2021, will directly oversee setup, operation, and maintenance of the E-GPS technology systems being utilized at 28 racetracks and coordinate chart-calling staff at more than 125 tracks across the country. A graduate of the Racetrack Industry Program at the University of Arizona, Little served as a product manager for AmTote prior to joining Equibase. Before transitioning to horse racing, Little spent his career in the hospitality...

In the aftermath of the controversial running of Saturday's Great White Way S. at Aqueduct, in which Brick Ambush (Laoban) crossed the wire second but was disqualified and placed last, outspoken owner Mike Repole has called for the resignation of The Jockey Club's president and CEO Jim Gagliano and its chairman Stuart Janney III. He did so Wednesday in a post to his account on the social media website X. Repole, who did not have a horse in the race, recently announced the formation of The National Thoroughbred Alliance (NTA),...

A pair of runners competing during Kentucky Derby week at Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby, will be offered wild card entries for Epsom's 3-year-old Classics contested four weeks later. The winner of Churchill's $500,000 GII Edgewood S., contested on the Kentucky Oaks undercard May 3, will receive an entry and travel incentive to run in the G1 Betfred Oaks at Epsom May 31. In the colt's division, a runner from the $500,000 GII American Turf S., scheduled for Kentucky Derby Day May 4, will receive an entry...

Baroness Dido Harding is to succeed Sandy Dudgeon as Senior Steward of The Jockey Club in July 2024. It has also been announced that Cheltenham Gold Cup and Grand National-winning amateur jockey Sam Waley-Cohen, who is now retired from the saddle, will join The Jockey Club's board of stewards from January 1, 2024. Baroness Harding, 56, a former amateur rider herself and a Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning owner, has been on the board of stewards since the end of 2017, having been appointed a member of The Jockey Club in 2004....

Breeding plans was the topic for the 10th and final panel of the 2023 OwnerView Virtual Thoroughbred Owner Conference, which was held Tuesday, Dec. 5, The Jockey Club said in a release Thursday. Panelists were Carrie Brogden, owner of Machmer Hall Farm; Alan Porter, founder of TrueNicks; and Mark Toothaker, director of stallions at Spendthrift Farm. The panel was hosted by OwnerView's project manager, Gary Falter. Topics for the breeding panel included matings, nicking, conformation traits, inbreeding, broodmare preferences and stallion selection. The first question to the panelists referred to...

It has been more than two weeks since 60 Minutes aired a piece on horse racing and its myriad problems, but it's still a smoldering issue. Many within the industry thought 60 Minutes had been unfair to the sport, presenting a piece that was unbalanced and focused far more on what's going wrong than what's going right. The Jockey Club said they did not ask 60 Minutes to do the segment, but did agree to participate and its chairman, Stuart Janney III, was among those interviewed. So what did Janney...

In horse racing, performance matters. I am a bloodstock agent and my performance is measured by the winning post. If I don't perform, I no longer have the credibility to earn a living buying racehorses. The Jockey Club was founded "not only to encourage the development of the thoroughbred horse, but to establish racing on such a footing that it may command the interests as well as the confidence and favourable opinion of the public." I moved to Kentucky to work in the horse business in 2000. Since then: The...

It is time for Stuart Janney to make his greatest gift to racing. On Sunday afternoon, I received a text from a colleague alerting me that I should tune into 60 Minutes later that night to watch their feature, "Horse Racing Reform?" Never before has it been more clear that as the sun begins to set on 2023, we are well past time to modernize the structure of The Jockey Club to make it accountable to all Thoroughbred industry stakeholders. The Jockey Club ought to be a fair representation of...

Applications for The Jockey Club's paid internship program for college students and recent college graduates and its five academic scholarship are now open, the organization announced on Tuesday. The internship program, which offers experience to all facets of The Jockey Club's operations and takes place out of the Lexington, Ky office, offers three slots in the summer or fall based on preference and lasts eight weeks. Applications are being accepted through Jan. 5 with notifications announced in February. The five scholarships will apply to the 2024-2025 academic year and range...

Blaithin Murphy has been named the new general manager of Wincanton Racecourse, The Jockey Club announced on Wednesday. Part of The Jockey Club since 2021, Murphy recently completed the general manager trainee programme. The 25-year-old will succeed Jack Parkinson, who will remain as the general manager of Exeter Racecourse, a post he has held since 2017. Murphy said, "I am delighted to be appointed general manager at Wincanton Racecourse. Racecourse management has always been a career ambition of mine and racing is a lifelong passion. I would like to thank...

As part of a "relentless focus on welfare", the Jockey Club has announced a number of changes to the Randox Grand National, including reducing the maximum number of starters from 40 to 34. Having canvassed the views of a wide range of racing industry stake-holders as well as World Horse Welfare, the Jockey Club has settled upon five key changes to the Aintree showcase, which will be run next year on Saturday, April 13. Last year's race was delayed by 15 minutes after protestors invaded the track. One of the...

Ben Newman, a "committed animal rights campaigner" who was filmed running onto Epsom Downs during the running of this year's G1 Derby in June, has been given a suspended prison sentence for breaking a High Court's injunction. The Jockey Club, which owns and operates Epsom Downs, had received an injunction banning the animal rights group Animal Rising of which Newman is a member, prior to the Derby in June. Newman's two-month prison sentence was suspended for 18 months during contempt of court proceedings on Wednesday. Tim James-Matthews, for Newman, said...