Delta Downs
Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), which in recent seasons has ended racing at such high-profile tracks as Arlington and Calder over alleged profitability issues, on Tuesday threatened to pull out of Fair Grounds over a recent court ruling that bars it from using a certain type of slot machine, saying the ban would cause it to lose money at the New Orleans track and 13 off-track-betting outlets it owns. Reporting by Anthony McAuley and Tyler Bridges at NOLA.com first broke the news, which emerged out of an "emergency" Louisiana Racing Commission...
Tim Thornton was the leading jockey and veteran conditioner Allen Landry was the top trainer at the Delta Downs meet which concluded Saturday. Thornton has now won five leading rider titles at Delta Downs dating back to the 2018-19 season, when he started a string of four consecutive titles before being unseated by Vicente Del Cid during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. Del Cid missed the first month of the 2024-25 meet, but quickly rose through the ranks to finish in the standings. Thornton won 85 races from 352 mounts...
Frigid temperatures and snowy conditions continued to cause cancellations this week, with both Parx and Mahoning Valley abandoning live racing Tuesday. It was the second day in a row both tracks were forced to cancel races as they joined Oaklawn Park in abandoning Monday cards. Turfway Park has moved its Wednesday racing card to Sunday with a 12:30 p.m. ET first post due to extreme cold temperatures. The program will not be redrawn and will run in its entirety on Sunday. Racing at the Kentucky track is scheduled to resume...
Tennessee Moon (Ransom the Moon) is not the type of horse to make headlines, but maybe that's because we've forgotten how special and admirable some of these blue-collar horses can be. The 5-year-old owned and trained by 56-year-old Mark Hibdon won 13 times from 18 starts in 2024, winning more races than any other horse in training. It's not just that she was winning, it was where she was winning. She ran in Louisiana (Delta Downs), Nebraska (Fonner Park), Wyoming (Energy Downs 307 Racing), Texas (Lone Star Park), Colorado (Arapahoe...
Norman Stables' Secret Faith (Aurelius Maximus) continued her demolition of the Louisiana-bred stakes ranks with a front-running 7 1/4-length victory in the fillies' division of the Louisiana Futurity at Fair Grounds Sunday. The 2-year-old filly has now won six of her seven starts to date, with five stakes wins at four different tracks. She has a combined winning margin of 40 1/2 lengths, led off by a 14-length score in the D.S. Shine Young Futurity at Evangeline Downs in August. Jayde Gelner purchased Secret Faith on behalf of owner Robbie...
As witnessed at this year's GI Preakness S., partnerships and syndicates are reaching the winner's circle at the highest levels. MyRacehorse scored the victory with Seize the Grey (Arrogate) and over 2,500 people now can claim they were part of a Triple Crown victory. MyRacehorse may be getting all the press, but the reality of the situation is it only provides a small fraction of the horses needed to fill races at the racetracks in the United States. When you zoom out and look at all the managed partnerships and...
It was back in 2006 and Brian Hernandez, Jr. was mired in 12th place in the jockey standings at Churchill Downs with 14 wins. It wasn't that he had been a failure. He won an Eclipse Award in 2004 as the nation's top apprentice, winning 243 races that year. And before moving to the Kentucky circuit in 2006, he was among the top riders at Evangeline Downs and Delta Downs in his native Louisiana. It's just that Hernandez had larger goals and he was starting to worry they would never...
A casino is supposed to be on the way, but in the meantime these are tough times for racing in Chicago and its only remaining racetrack, Hawthorne. They still don't have any outside revenue from a casino, their purses are meager and their simulcast signal gets lost on days like Saturday, when they went up against the likes of Aqueduct, Gulfstream, Keeneland, Oaklawn and Santa Anita. The handle Saturday was $1,019,178. It should have been three times that. We've seen a lot of tracks experiment with lower takeouts. The latest...
Vicente Del Cid finished atop the rider standings, while Karl Broberg retained his grip on the leading trainer crown and End Zone Athletics, Inc. won another leading owner title as results from the 2023-2024 Thoroughbred season at Delta Downs mirrored last year's results at the Louisiana track. The Thoroughbred season concluded Saturday. Del Cid won his second consecutive title as leading rider with 116 wins from 438 mounts and $2,624,265 in mount earnings. The Guatemala native's first career win came at Delta Downs on Oct. 21, 2021, and he finished...
Trainer Sarah Delany was scheduled to be released from a Houston, Texas hospital Tuesday after undergoing spinal surgery due to an injury suffered at Delta Downs Wednesday morning. Delany, who trains alongside her husband Benny Martinez, was injured Wednesday morning at Delta Downs when she was kicked by a horse in the back of her neck, according to family friend and client Brian Poppenberg. The local Lake Charles hospital sent her via CareFlight to Houston, where she underwent emergency surgery. "This morning I spoke with her husband Benny, and she...
Sarah Delany, who trains along with her husband Benny Martinez, was injured Wednesday morning at Delta Downs when she was kicked by a horse in the back of her neck, according to family friend and client Brian Poppenberg. The local Lake Charles hospital sent her via CareFlight to Houston, where she underwent emergency surgery. "She was kicked in the back of the neck, and had spinal surgery as well as fusion," said Poppenberg, "and luckily enough she has feeling in all extremities but recovery will be lengthy. "Let me express...
Delta Downs Racetrack Casino & Hotel will lower the takeout rate on all Pick 4 and Pick 5 wagering pools from 25% to 12% beginning Wednesday, Dec. 13, according to a press release from the track. The new rate will be in effect through Feb. 24, when the season ends. The track offers an Early Pick 5 beginning with the first race each night and a Late Pick 5, which covers the final five races. The Early Pick 4 starts on the second race and the Late Pick 4 covers...